It makes no sense environmentally to keep private cars around.
If we channeled half that money into public transport, we would have amazing systems and could save the other half. Without cars, many roads in city centers could be reclaimed into public squares, or planted.
Until Public Transport can match the quite amazing "go anywhere" utility of a car, it isn't going anywhere.
With money, engineering and creativity it could be done. And I hope it is. But even if it starts today, I won't live to see it in full action.
I still fantasize about sitting in a standardised car-cabin-like box IE seats(maybe facing each other), aircon, windows, media.
And having it shuttled around like a packet on the network. Automated trains, trams, trucks, cars, drones even - all working in harmony to get you where you want to go.
That way I'd own my space. But all the moving parts can be communal and benefit from best engineering practice for efficiency at economies of scale.
This presumes the existence of cars, which is exactly what is ostensibly to be eliminated in the public transit strategy.
You could absolutely go visit your friend on his farm if we had a decent public transit system.
Also how is your specific case a refutation of the GPs argument anyway? Everybody always loves to argue against public transit with some weird special case that's somehow "possible". It's quite tiresome.
How about some imagination instead. Is it such a stretch to image a rural bus route that goes by your friends farm? How about a few mile bicycle ride from the nearest town's train station? How about renting a car ala Zipcar? I am sure there are many other ways to solve this non-problem.
Lets break this down:
1. I took a bus to a train to a bus to a tiny village in the countryside in England. Nothing in view for miles except the pub at the bus stop and a farm.
1A. Cool. I can't do that. I did write a convenience comparison [train, all day regional bus, unknown last mile effort] vs [car] but it was lengthy with predictable results, especially when travelling with wife and toddler.
But I am absolutely not against trying to make it better.
2. You could absolutely go visit your friend on his farm if we had a decent public transit system.
2A. Ok.
3. Also how is your specific case a refutation of the GPs argument anyway? Everybody always loves to argue against public transit with some weird special case that's somehow "possible". It's quite tiresome.
3A. I didn't think I was refuting? I like the idea of decent public transport for all. I mean, there wasn't even any specifics mentioned. Just a general "goodness" of it. I like goodness!
But many people take for granted the miracle of convenience a car provides. It certainly isn't some weird special case.
It is a huge task to match that with Public Transport, just via engineering and technically. Let alone doing it in such a manner that it is socially accepted by the public at large.
4. How about some imagination instead. Is it such a stretch to image a rural bus route that goes by your friends farm? How about a few mile bicycle ride from the nearest town's train station? How about renting a car ala Zipcar? I am sure there are many other ways to solve this non-problem.
4A. I did say "With money, engineering and creativity it could be done." And it really isn't an all or nothing endeavor either.
But it is a HUGE endeavor to match the convenience of a car. And my example was merely trying to demonstrate that.
And there are possible solutions to tire dust. Changes to tire formulation, better road maintenance and mitigations, possibly relying more on tunnels (which we should do anyway in cities, even if it’s more expensive... and EVs make it much easier). Once fossil fuels are solved, it makes tire dust the next problem we can tackle.
So don’t use tire dust as an excuse to not transition to electric vehicles. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the much better. (And public transport can also generate particulates... tire dust, dust from rails, brake dust, and especially diesel particulates from buses.... we need to electrify everything.)
EDIT: And I don’t want to use this an excuse to NOT do public transport, only to argue it actually has much the same problem, but in case you don’t believe me on the rail dust thing: https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/standardinterpretations/1996-... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896971...
If it's a densely populated place, I don't think that "less polluting cars" is the answer.
This underground train thing doesn't have to be called train as I understand trains are considered communism in the USA. It is actually a sharing economy of connected electric vehicles, atmospheric pressure hyper-loop if you wish. Many of those are autonomous too, like level 5 autonomy without LIDAR. They are often used with a loyalty card(called "Osyter card" in London, for example) and even work with your mobile phone if you prefer not to carry a plastic card!
You can always say that in 2 years it would be pressurised and run at supersonic speeds!
We need to work with the current conditions, and that means BOTH public transit and better EV/road infrastructure.
All the things attributed to the American car-centric lifestyle were a thing to some degree everywhere. Then people got tired of it and changed it. Probably Europe not having much petrol also helped, which also explains the tendency of the European cars having significantly smaller and efficient engines.
There are plenty of cool videos of European cities that used to be traffic hells that turned into bicycle friendly walkable places. Though admittedly the hell part still exist for those who choose the to drive the cars.
That said, like you mentioned: that didn't stop them from making traffic hellholes. Designing a city to need cars is a choice.
Cars are a huge problem in Europe as well.
Take Mainz, Germany; where my father is from; the core of the city is a walkable old city (which my Opa knew every corner of having worked for the city for decades, and he toured me around all over it when I visited...). But then around it are a whole bunch of villages which grew into suburbs, and are connected by freeway. But it seems to me that because each of those villages, towns, and the central city already had a tradition of walkability, the connectivity between the towns, villages, suburbs took that into account when the post-WWII reconstruction happened.
In Mainz I was able to take a streetcar out from the centre of town to a small village in under 45 minutes and go walk in a forest. Here in southern Ontario -- where we have similar density and population to the Frankfurt/Rhine corridor -- such a thing requires a car.
The snark is unwarranted, it is unwelcome, and it is against the guidelines for this site.
America is absolutely enormous, sprawling, and suffers from a relatively recent inability to build things, which is very frustrating indeed.
If we were to cram our entire population into, say, Michigan†, I doubt we would have given over our extensive rail network to freight. But, we did, and Los Angeles tram system was bought out in a shady backroom deal, and there were other various and sundry sins. But mostly, we invented jet travel, and trains just don't cover the 4500 kilometers between New York and Los Angeles in an appropriate amount of time.
Admit it: if you were going from London to Istanbul, you could take a train, but you would fly. Well, London to Istanbul and back, that's the distance from New York to Los Angeles. Which you can do by train! But, people don't.
California, that notorious bastion of communism, voted in a high speed train between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and is still waiting for what they paid for. LA has added quite a lot of Metro in the last 30 years, but with a mere 150km of rail, 93 stations, and only a hundred million yearly riders, there's a long way to go. Meanwhile SF can't get the BART to circle around the South Bay for love or money.
† The size of the entire UK, and there are ten states larger.
As the "densely populated area" remark should give it away, I do not claim that USA should build metro lines between cities. What I say that cars in cities are not the solution.
Funny enough, I am in Istanbul since a while. I flew from London to Istanbul, it took me about 8,5 hours I guess. 30 minutes to Heathrow, 2 hours at Heathrow, 5 hours in the plane(did not take off immediately) ,1 hour at Istanbul Airport, 1 hour on a bus to my destination. Definitely better than the train but only because there's no direct line. The trains in Europe are great but expensive. If there was an overnight train to Istanbul from King's Cross at reasonable price I would have taken it.
The mass transit in Istanbul is horrendous but wherever available, the metro is much much better than the Istanbul traffic. Admittedly, the car could be better if you are in an S class Mercedes and being chauffeured.
Believe it or not, a substantial proportion of the population takes pride in their car ownership and the maintenance thereof.
Brakes get less use tho, due to regenerative braking.
"The report assumes that diesel and gasoline-powered cars are going to be replaced with electric vehicles, eliminating tailpipe emissions, but that problematic PM emissions will remain or even increase."
[1] https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/environment/non-exhaust-partic...
[2] https://www.treehugger.com/electric-cars-wont-save-us-from-p...
If you selectively choose the smallest Model 3 vs the heaviest 3 Series BMW, maybe it's 100lb. If you choose models with comparative ranges, it's as much as 800lbs. That is a massive difference.
The model 3 and BMW aren't really that close either depending on which model you pick.
Apparently, the dark greasy stuff that you can see covering everything close to vehicle roads is not coming from the fumes but from the asphalt, tires and brakes.