Tires are still going to produce micro plastics that pollute out waterways.

It makes no sense environmentally to keep private cars around.

However, it makes huge sense economically, so they'll be around for a while.

Does it actually? People are just happy to spend $50k on a car but dont like paying for public transport.

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.

With todays Public Transport I couldn't simply go visit my friend 3 hours away on his farm. I can in a car.

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.

There’s always going to be something that is hard or unreachable by public transport. The key here is multi-modality: you reach the edge of the city by public transport and then switch to car sharing.

I agree with this. If you have self driving cars in particular then this is a quite likely one part of the solution.

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.

> then switch to car sharing

This presumes the existence of cars, which is exactly what is ostensibly to be eliminated in the public transit strategy.

I am a pretty strong car-hater my self and I can only speak for myself, but I think that nobody wants to ban cars everywhere. There are lots of places though that would be much better with no or minimal cars.

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.

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.

Weirdly, I think we're largely on the same side here. :-)

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.

Forget about the farm. With todays public transit you are lucky if you can get to work, which is the easiest transit market to serve. If you need groceries it is just fine to transit managers if you drive.

Well given my experiences on public transportation in a couple US cities (being threatened by some delusional guy and sitting beside people who smell like they haven't bathed in weeks) I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's gonna be a while. I think autonomous private rental cars/vans will be much more doable.

Yet areas that have been able to limit their use always seem so vibrant.

Well that's been the fact for thousands of years if you can get enough humans in a centralized location, specialization and trade starts happening so it's kind of orthogonal to modern life. Not everyone wants to be told where to live and what to do.

It does when you don't live in an autocracy and people still like cars. Unless you plan on herding all the rural people into cities.