We'd be better off with dense cities where automobile is not the primary means of transportation. Like e.g. NYC or many European cities.

Cars and large trucks should mostly belong to highways and country roads.

NYC is a very far way from being a carless paradise. Yes, lots of people walk or take transit. But, especially in Manhattan, many streets are choked for a good chunk of the day.

Far more people use the subway than drive to work.

Only 28% of people in NYC commute by car/truck/van. 55% take public transit and 10% walk, 1% bike, 4% work from home, and 2% take a Taxi or other. https://www.nycedc.com/blog-entry/new-york-commute

PS: The van thing is also closer to a bus than a private car.

It's not a paradise, but it's a city where you can live nicely without a car, and without a slightest desire to own it. Public transportation (non-ideal as it is) and the occasional uber / lyft / cab trip cover the needs of daily commute. Also, walking is easy, and a lot of things are within an easy walking distance, not only on Manhattan but also in most of Brooklyn and Queens.

I live in a major city (Toronto) and don't own a car, but this is still something of a fantasy - major cities are incredibly reliant on automobiles for moving goods in and out of the city even before you consider moving people.

And with that said, Toronto is far from being a city where we could live without cars for human transportation - without Uber getting around would be hell.

Cars as a secondary transport are fine. In NYC I take a cab / lyft once in a while, but it's like 3% of my trips.

Delivery trucks are, or course, incredibly important in a city. But they are also much more efficient than cars moving 1-2 people, so they need a bit less road capacity.

Also, city traffic is pretty favorable for electric vehicles with recuperative braking, so the coming crop of city buses and delivery trucks is going to have a significant portion of all-electric or hybrid vehicles. This helps the air pollution problem.

Very much a personal opinion. I hate living in dense cites. Dealing with owning a car in the city makes it worse, but I prefer living in a less dense area and owning a car. In fact I own 5.

Not having to drive a car daily is freedom. Living in a city with functioning and affordable public transport is, well, a blessing of sorts.

I didn't read the comment as a suggestion of being better off without automobiles - merely an observation that the same reservations were felt by people transitioning from horses to automobiles...

It's not a binary choice between "current system" and "no cars whatsoever".

We might not be better off, but the rest of the planet sure as hell would be. Not to mention that the history of overpopulation would be very different without those things.