I'm not sure if you realise there are many world cities where you don't need a car.

I think great public transit is extremely threatening to car ownership, especially when zoning changes as a result of public transit.

In Hong Kong, which is one of the densest cities on earth and probably the world capital of public transit, many families (at least those who can afford to) still prefer to use cars to get around.

It's just easier - until car sharing is functionally seamless and available more-or-less instantly, that will continue to be the case.

There are apparently ~500,000 private vehicles in Hong Kong (population 7.5 million). While I'm sure there are plenty of rich families doing that (perhaps partially as a status thing), it's not the norm.

Apparently Tesla isn't having much luck selling its cars there anymore anyway:

https://qz.com/1024886/nobody-in-hong-kong-wants-a-teslanasd... https://www.ft.com/content/2b8eb480-0a45-11e8-839d-41ca06376...

I live in Hong Kong. In a city this small and dense (and where a residential parking space can cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars), 500,000 private vehicles is a huge number.

Actually I misread https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Hong_Kong#Private... and that's the number of licensed vehicles. Maybe a substantial portion are taxis/delivery trucks/etc.

But only one car per 14 people. I don't have the numbers for the US but I'd guess it's somewhere closer to one car per 2-3 people. Advances in public transport and ridesharing could lower demand for cars significantly. Sure, families and many others will still want to have cars but even if demand just decreases by 10-20% that's a huge number and could kill 1-2 car manufacturers.

As crazy as that might sound to you, that is in fact not unusual in places with good public transit.

Do families with babies and young children prefer public transport over cars in these places?

No reason why not. I see prams on public transit in Sydney all the time.

Depending on the age of the children they can also take public transport on their own, so can the drunk, elderly, and disabled.

(Kids are so overprotected in this age - freedom to travel on their own on bicycles or public transport is great!)

These people may not be able to drive cars. No, they can't get a self-driving car trip for $1.50 yet. When they can, we won't have enough road space anyway (one 8-carriage Sydney train carries 1200 people, that's a long line of cars!)

I really like what Citymapper is doing - augmenting buses with modern tech, similar to Uber Pool but coming from the other direction: https://medium.com/citymapper/good-bus-part-1-3-77d65e6f8ce3

To an extent, yes. Basically you have three possibilities: a) daycare is close to home, b) daycare is close to work, c) daycare is in random place.

Of these, b) is the least common, but for these people public transport works well. From our previous house, we did this, I took both kids (5 and 2) by bus with a jogging stroller to and from daycare every day. This was approx. 15 minutes faster than going by car, due to dense traffic and very limited parking spaces. Now we live close enough that we bicycle instead.a

I mean if you asked them, they might prefer a helicopter ride or a flying car, but they certainly do use buses and trains. Subway stations without elevators or escalators are not ideal for strollers though.

None of the people in my gf's family in singapore has ever owned a car or a driver's license.

Yes, even here in a rural area with good public transport. Not just us as parents, but our 2-year old loves going by train or bus.

yes

Yes.

> Would families stop buying cars and prefer public transportation over their own car?

There's indication that that's happening to some extent where I live (Dublin); number of people commuting into the city by car has dropped recently. More families can get by on one car, or no cars, than could before.