I think I will pass. If you outlaw driving in cities without a good alternative, I will just not live in a city anymore. But let me guess: you want to outlaw that too...
I think the point is indeed to provide good public transportation as a suitable alternative.
> I will just not live in a city anymore
And why not? That's an entirely legitimate choice
If your aim is "Reduce pollution caused by cars" then changing people from car-owning city-dwellers into car-owning suburb-dwellers might increase total pollution.
For example, if a family with one car turns into a family with two or three.
It could be managed by GPS trackers in vehicles, with the ability to charge different amounts in different locations and time of day (i.e. driving in cities or during rush hour should be discouraged), level of congestion, vehicle type (weight, length, self-driving or not), and selective emission controls (e.g. high polluters banned from city centres).
Fuel taxes are a simple, proportional way to target carbon emissions (effectively a carbon tax). However things like this should all be done with care (see gilets jaunes).
Just let people who don't want to live in density pay for the externalities of low density living (require EVs, higher cost for infra, etc).
I am relaying the science on global warming which indicates that if we continue down this path then we are absolutely screwed.
Density is not my idea. Density is what you get if you want (a) 7 billion people and (b) anything remotely resembling a sustainable society. If you also want a not dense society, then tell me which of (a) and (b) you want to eliminate.
If you're saying you want to ween us off of our rapidly worsening fossil fuel addiction then I don't know what to tell you but I do have several bridges to sell you.
Density might still have a chance in developing nations if they can avoid developing around the idea of the car; TBD.
We need to stop subsidizing suburban and rural living yesterday.
Unlikely. America has enough wealth that aside from coastal areas, life won't change that much unless agriculture collapses entirely.
> Electric vehicles are not going to fix much when our electricity is still mostly made by fossil fuels.
Coal is rapidly declining in use in the US for electrical generation. Natural gas will eventually be replaced by overbuilt renewables and battery storage (and EVs are a component of that). Electrifying transportation would be a huge step forward for moving off of fossil fuels compared to natural gas generation currently in play [1].
All of the above is possible without density or everyone moving to urban areas. American politics are built around equality of votes between dense cities, the suburbs, and rural areas. That is not changing in the foreseeable future. You're going to have to rely on market forces to drive out the remaining fossil fuels used.
Everyone can buy an EV or renewable power though to send market signals to ramp production capacity of both. Same with insulating your home and ensuring you're using as little energy as possible to condition your home spaces. And batteries. We need as many batteries as we can make.
[1] https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/energy/us/...
Not only, it might be considered the precise sought after effect.
Cycle lanes, especially protected ones, are there to encourage cycling.
> stuff...
> I really don't get this desire to outlaw cars.
That's not the point, it's that in this case the infrastructure cost to clean up cities is astronomical. Forgetting air pollution, noise pollution, deaths from traffic collisions, congestion - you also have to consider the shear infrastructural costs that _already_ go into maintaining road surfaces, traffic control, policing, etc. And that's without tunnel boring.
> I like walkable cities, but I also like the comfort and
> privacy of car transport.
I think we just have to look at the practicality of private transport in cities.
> I still don't enjoy being squeezed in with thousands of
> other people.
Perhaps this is where public transportation can be innovated on.
> Does that mean that people like me have to be reeducated
> and/or forced to see the error of their ways?
Most likely - it's simply the march of progress. As horses were mostly outlawed/discouraged from cities, I suspect cars will be too.