Low cost is not defined in this article. Absolutely no strategy is given other than "build new walkable cities someplace else", which seems hard to justify as low cost to me.
What is the cost to maintain/upgrade our current car-based transportation infrastructure? Streets, parking, enforcement, etc all have a cost and it's not $0 and 0 square feet.
In my mid-sized city, roads are reasonably well maintained. The city budget is 78% police and fire salary/benefits. Less than 8% is allocated to the public works department, which includes other functions as well. State grants ranging from 1-3% provide some assistance for roads.
Since this journal is called Governing after all I imagine it has something to do with policy.
You know, the free stuff, no parking space minimums for new developments, rezoning city areas to allow for shops, enabling actual new developments in the first place instead of NIMBYism.
