i know your argument only too well. i already explained to you that i have been following and engaging actual professionals who do city planning for a living. i almost certainly could argue your own viewpoint better than you can.
about 15 years ago i watched a documentary about “Peak Oil” that prophesied that the world will have run out of oil by now … you know, same as how the polar ice caps have melted, we all died from Covid and so on … Obviously it was a lie but that’s how long i have been thinking about car dependency.
I don’t remember what that bullshit old “documentary” ( shit-lib propaganda ) was called, but here is a good recent documentary you might enjoy, that is also anti-oil but is actually from somebody i respect:
Pay no attention to low view count and recent upload date - it’s a re-upload. I watched the original probably 2 or 3 years ago, but apparently the channel was wiped by YouTube.
Among other things it talks about how oil and car companies paid off politicians to build roads and scrap trains and public transit and so on. See ? I can turn your own perspective into a hot conspiracy take if i want to.
Certainly stupidity and corruption can go both ways. As i said i disagree with the way most streets in America lack sidewalks. I agree with you that a lot of city planning from certain era is car-dependent in a way that is somewhat atrocious. If your car breaks down you shouldn’t have to become stranded until someone rescues you unless you are in the wilderness. I have seen children walk on the side of a fairly high speed road with no sidewalk and i was tempted to give them a ride but i didn’t want to be accused of being some kind of a predator. children shouldn’t have to walk down the side of essentially a highway simply because there is nowhere else for them to go.
but on the other hand i believe that since we do have cars we should take advantage of them. mass transit, bicycles and walking should serve as backup. the problem with many areas in US is that there is no backup at all. i disagree with that. same as how i disagree with US cities not having public restrooms.
the problem is that Liberals / Progressives aren’t in favor of having a robust backup for people who may have car trouble. they want to REPLACE cars. i’m all in favor of wildlife overpasses, pedestrian overpasses, sidewalks, bike lanes and all that …
but that’s not what Liberals want. they want CAR FREE CITIES.
and i agree with that too ! i think cars don’t work in cities ! if they did i would still be living in a city !
i just want shit-libs to let me keep my car in the suburbs. but they won’t let me. they will find a way to screw with me somehow. they always do.
just like Rockefeller supposedly had Trams removed from American Cities now Pete Buttigieg is removing ROADS for being racist. we as a society are not capable of doing anything rationally. we can only go from atrocity to reverse atrocity.
shit-libs lie and talk about how they believe in “Multi-Modal” transportation but that’s not what they believe in at all. I am the one who believes in “Multi-Model” transportation. i believe in cars, buses, subway, bicycles and pedestrians co-existing with people being able to choose what works for them.
on the other hand the elites believe in flying privately and banning cars for everybody else, and brain-dead shit-libs like that zombie woman screaming at an ambulance simply regurgitate the talking points fed to them by the elites … this woman is the western equivalent of Jihadists beheading people because of something written in the Koran only instead of Koran it was some Netflix “documentary” …
the elites will never ask you " would you like us to ban you from driving ? " instead they will ask " would you like to have more bike lanes, more parks, safer cities, cleaner air, more sustainable and competitive economy etc " and you will be like OF COURSE ! and they will be like " congratulations your car is banned " …