The more roadways you build to accommodate cars, the more cars fill up the roadways, as long as more people have cars in the city. [0] On the other hand, public transit can be designed to ease congestion and allow movement between densely populated areas. Moreover, cost of building public transit keeps on increasing [1].

The solution is not more roadways to magically reduce congestion. It's to build public transit today before it gets more expensive. See the success of the Delhi Metro in India, for example, where New Delhi was never built with a local subway system in mind. [2]

[0] https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/09/citylab-unive... [1] https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/04/why-new-york-... [2] https://www.globalmasstransit.net/archive.php?id=26471

I do not disagree with anything you say. If I was in any position of power, getting rid of cars would be a top priority. My personal favorite country in the world is the Netherlands, specifically for its cycling and public transportation.

However, as I said, I believe you (and greenonion) are oversimplifying a complex problem. If you've ever been to any US city, you will see just how much influence the car has had in the development of the entire country. From the principles that you are stating, and that I believe are empirically correct, to the implementation of any viable solution there is a gargantuan gap, and I don't see any solutions being presented. Just "cars are bad, we should use public transport".

I am telling you that the problem in India was just as complex and the political system there is also democratic.

And yes, I have been to US cities multiple times, and I don't see why the challenges there are so very different. New Delhi is denser than New York. Its traffic situation was as bad as New York. I am not saying implementation is easy. I am saying implementation is feasible. It's a matter of public and political will. What's holding it back is not that somehow the problem is so complex that it can't be solved.

Adding to the point of induced demand on traffic, thankfully it works the other way too. The traffic situation does not get significantly worse when roads are reduced. The Alaskan viaduct highway in Seattle is an example of this.

Edit: And I have seen the transformation of Vancouver to accommodate bike lanes too, and while Vancouver is nowhere as dense, my point is that the traffic situation did not actually get worse when bike lanes were introduced.