Which is why I included the second part of my statement, which you did not quote: we would need to use the proceeds to dramatically increase the quality and quantity of alternatives to driving so that people had a realistic choice.
I totally agree with you that people are driving mostly because they have to, not for fun. However, retrofitting car-oriented development to be viable for non-car users is exceptionally difficult.
I can’t imagine any way of accomplishing that, unless we begin by acknowledging that cars won’t scale up any farther and that we have to redirect our efforts into things that will.
If you introduce congestion charges without also providing a functional public transit alternative you'll be voted out of office. Plain and simple.
Congestion charges worked in London, for example, because public transit is amazing there and people could stop driving without decreasing their quality of life. Yet it was still a source of much controversy in London at the time. What are people supposed to do in LA -- walk everywhere?
> we would need to use the proceeds to dramatically increase the quality and quantity of alternatives to driving so that people had a realistic choice.
I agree, but public transit projects take years to complete, so in the interim you'd have very expensive driving and worse congestion than before (due to construction), which sounds like hell on earth. Would it be feasible to invest the costs up front and collect the payout later?
Sevilla, Spain is the poster-child of rapidly building out a bike network[0], and with the political will, that could be replicated elsewhere (especially somewhere flat and sunny like LA). Another easy way to improve transit is paint dedicated bus lanes for BRT lines. Not as sexy as dropping a few mil on light rail, but quick, cheap, and rapidly scalable.
I did not quote, but I did address "Make the alternatives better than driving."
You have things completely backwards, first you want to make everyone miserable, then hopefully they'll fix things.
> retrofitting car-oriented development to be viable for non-car users is exceptionally difficult.
It's actually not about retrofitting, it's because cars are just that good. Nothing else comes close.
> unless we begin by acknowledging that cars won’t scale up any farther
They'll scale just fine if we space out our cities a bit more.
It's actually pretty self balancing, when we run out of road space, people spread out a bit more. So there's no scaling issues, there's plenty of space in the world.
I mean if your goal is to pack people in like livestock then it doesn't scale, but that's not something I want.
> and that we have to redirect our efforts into things that will.
Such as? So far nothing exists. And I'm not just saying that. I tried it. I exclusively used public transportation for 1.5 months, in a city that is world renounced for probably the best public transportation of anywhere. (There was literally nowhere you couldn't go with public transportation.)
It was horrible. I feel really bad for anyone who has to use public transportation.
That's the reality.
If you want change, change that first. You won't need to tax cars off the road, they'll leave on their own.
I totally agree with you that people are driving mostly because they have to, not for fun. However, retrofitting car-oriented development to be viable for non-car users is exceptionally difficult.
I can’t imagine any way of accomplishing that, unless we begin by acknowledging that cars won’t scale up any farther and that we have to redirect our efforts into things that will.