[SilverElfin]

Wrong. Cars are high utility and should remain on roads. They increase quality of life by giving you a fast way to get to exactly where you want on your own schedule. And designing for cars IS designing for people, obviously. Who do you think is inside cars?

[evandale]

Designing for public transit and cycling benefits far more people than designing exclusively for single passenger cars.

Who do you think are on bikes and in buses?

[xnx]

> designing exclusively for single passenger cars

What is design for single passenger cars? Most cars can fit 5 people and roads also carry buses, ambulances, and trucks that carry every single product* in the economy.

* Probably with the exception of coal and some mining materials.

[chriswarbo]

> Most cars can fit 5 people

So you agree that most cars are far larger and heavier than required? First search result for "average car occupancy"[1]:

> In 2022 the Average Number of Occupants Per Trip for Household Vehicles in the United States Was 1.5

This discrepancy is the reason for car pooling, ride-sharing, etc. (Note that Uber, Lyft, etc. are taxi services, not "ride sharing"; since the drivers themselves are not typically intending to travel the routes they drive)

> roads also carry buses

Yes, which is why cars should be removed from such roads, to avoid slowing down buses.

> ambulances

Emergency vehicles can drive in places where cars are forbidden (cycle paths, pedestrianised roads, etc.)

> trucks that carry every single product* in the economy.

Again, you're undermining your own argument: the subsidies given to private car infrastructure are so large, that freight companies exploiting that infrastructure can end up more cost-effective than those which use rail; despite rail being more efficient not only in terms of fuel, but also in terms of labour (since so many trucks would be required to do the job of a single freight train, and each of those trucks require a separate driver). Also note that heavier vehicles degrade the road infrastructure disproportionately; which is even more reason to reduce the number of trucks as far as possible.

[1] https://www.energy.gov/cmei/vehicles/articles/fotw-1333-marc...

[halostatue]

My quality of life is increased by having more bike lanes so that I can get around _faster_ and _healthier_ than having to use my car. I'm also able to get where I want and need to be on my own schedule by car, bike, public transit, and walking — which mode matters based on the needs of the destination.

I shop at Costco by bike most of the time. Once every couple of months there's enough that needs to be bought that I use the car.

I have a dental appointment tomorrow: I can walk or cycle there faster than I can drive and find parking. I have another appointment on Monday at a hospital and I'll cycle there far faster than I can take public transit _or_ private car, and I won't have to pay ~$15/hour for parking or park a kilometre away.

Get out of your North American car bubble and look at what Paris and the Netherlands have done: they have not banned private car ownership or use, but they have removed some of them from streets. Utrecht just opened a massive underground _bike parking garage_ but it's also one of the busiest cities in the Netherlands in terms of car traffic.

There is no war on cars; that's something that has been invented out of whole cloth. Those of us who agitate for improved _options_ simply want (1) cars to pay their full freight (they don't, not by a long shot); (2) safer roads for pedestrians, cyclists, and those who want alternative mobility options; (3) more public transit; and (3) fewer cars moving slower because that's the only way to alleviate traffic.

You're not in traffic: you are traffic.

Your claim that designing for cars is designing for people is risible. Designing for people first (that's the goal!) means larger sidewalks, more barriers so that distracted or angry drivers find it harder to find themselves on those sidewalks, and fewer cars with clear rules so that vulnerable road users have absolute priority over people in cars. The larger and faster your vehicle, the more responsibility you should have, both in terms of liability when you inevitably collide with an obstruction and in terms of what you pay to keep the roads and surrounding infrastructure maintained.