Well, rush hour is what matters. As those of us who have worked on large distributed systems are aware, you have to provision for peak load. Peak load for cars is much, much worse than peak load for buses. Roads and parking lots are also relatively inflexible, unlike buses and trains where you can run more in one direction depending on time of day.
> Yes, and that's great. The world where people are free to move is so much better than Soviet-style arrangements where you have to live in your factory's provided units. With great transit, sure.
I appreciate the value in being able to move freely, but cars also constrain in many ways. They force more building to happen at the wildland-urban interface, to devastating effect as seen in the Palisades fire.
More importantly, current zoning and parking regulations make modern America very far from a free market. Not as far away as the Soviets were, but definitely nowhere close to reflecting people's true preferences once all benefits and costs are factored in. I doubt cars would be nearly as central in a market where single-family zoning was abolished and the full externalities of driving were captured.
> Yes, and that's great. The world where people are free to move is so much better than Soviet-style arrangements where you have to live in your factory's provided units. With great transit, sure.
I appreciate the value in being able to move freely, but cars also constrain in many ways. They force more building to happen at the wildland-urban interface, to devastating effect as seen in the Palisades fire.
More importantly, current zoning and parking regulations make modern America very far from a free market. Not as far away as the Soviets were, but definitely nowhere close to reflecting people's true preferences once all benefits and costs are factored in. I doubt cars would be nearly as central in a market where single-family zoning was abolished and the full externalities of driving were captured.