> I suspect if you threw away all preconceived notions of local mobility and started with maximizing {effectiveness/efficiency/carbon/infrastructure costs/real estate/ healthcare/economic benefit/commute times/ opportunity costs} rather than an individual car you would end up with rapid on demand transit (think publicly funded ride-share minivans, light rail, bus rapid transit, autonomous golf carts, e-bikes and biking infrastructure) for moving people by default. Beyond that, you'd also see 15 minute neighborhoods where essentials are all walkable, and remote work for many commuters. Networked local mobility, denser mixed use planning, and hybrid work all do better at some of the same jobs that cars do today.
Yeah, sure, you'd see a lot of public transport in dense areas.
However I disagree that the population would all be housed in dense housing.
The only reason dense centers exist is because its walkable, bikable, etc. People who don't want to live in dense areas would still exist in significant enough numbers that the automobile as we know it would still exist.
Densification occurred prior to the automobile; it was not sufficient to prevent the invention of the automobile as we know it.
> The only reason dense centers exist is because its walkable, bikable, etc. People who don't want to live in dense areas would still exist in significant enough numbers that the automobile as we know it would still exist
That's not axiomatic. Commuter rail systems address this - there's a heavy rail line going through low density places, with infrastructure centered around that - be it bike lanes and racks, bus lines, or worst case scenario car parkings. The last mile problem can be solved in a variety of ways even in low density environments ( and FYI has been solved in many places around the world - e.g. in Paris the RER network continues to what are literally villages with houses, with population in the hundreds, with big parking lots and some other related infrastructure, and bus lines going there. So even if you live in a big house with a yard, you can bike, walk, take the bus, use your e-scooter or whatever to get to the train station which takes you to where you need to go).
Sure, but using public transport is a heavy trade-off in time. Where I am now, at peak hour a train (to my chosen destination) arrives every 15m. The bus/shuttle to the nearest station arrives as often as they can, which can be between 10m and 15m.
My last trip (from suburbs to a CBD +-20km away) during peak hour involved 30m total of waiting for the next shuttle/bus/train. That's 30m without the actual time in transit (on the train its quite fast - about 10m transit. On the bus, it is not, about 15m transit because it has many stops to make).
The next day I drove instead, and took a total of 30m to get to my destination.
Commuter transit systems work wonderfully for people who want to do things during transit but otherwise have no other use of their time.
For me, and a lot of people who opted to live in child-friend homes in child-friendly suburbs, an extra 60m-90m spent in transit is 60m-90m of time we lost with our family.
I don't care that I can read during that time; I can always simply read after my kid has gone to bed after all. I care that I get to spend those few extra hours per day with my kid.
This time trade-off is the main reason that pushes me to still have a car despite living right next to a bus stop and having good light rail nearby. Sure, when I need to go all the way downtown its nice having the light rail so I don't have to deal with parking, but on day to day kind of trips adding the time of riding the bus is quite a tradeoff compared to just driving there myself.
This is before pointing out that while there are daycares, there are grocery stores, there are restaurants available easily by the bus or by bike, there are far more options readily available by car and maybe its not fun carrying a week's worth of food for a family with me on the bus. And then there are people I like to visit who don't live near public transit, so choosing to go without a car means I wouldn't be able to visit them regularly.
Owning and operating a car is definitely expensive. I could technically live my life without a car, its entirely feasible from my location. However the time, ease, and freedom tradeoffs make car ownership still make sense for me. I still ultimately prioritized living in an area with decent mass transit and love to take it when it makes sense. I know people who do rely on the public transit for every day transportation, and I'm happy they're able to visit me easily and I'm perfectly fine with subsidizing it.
EDIT: I just looked up a normal trip I take on Google Maps to double check transit times in comparison to driving. 10 minute drive. 30 minute bike ride. 1 hour bus trip. Another common trip: 10 minute drive, 30 minute bike ride, 30 minute bus ride. Even for the shorter one, that's 40 minutes round-trip not counting on waiting for the bus for a trip I normally do weekly. That's about 33 hours a year of extra waiting for just that one route.
Yeah, sure, you'd see a lot of public transport in dense areas.
However I disagree that the population would all be housed in dense housing.
The only reason dense centers exist is because its walkable, bikable, etc. People who don't want to live in dense areas would still exist in significant enough numbers that the automobile as we know it would still exist.
Densification occurred prior to the automobile; it was not sufficient to prevent the invention of the automobile as we know it.