Originally Posted by CrankyOne

To answer your question we first need to determine if cars are indeed a problem, what kind of problem, and then consider solutions. I believe cars are a problem because U.S. drivers do not control them well and thus kill and seriously injure a huge number of innocent people every year. Cars eat up valuable space and take space away from others such as pedestrians and bicycle riders, sidewalk cafes, and other endeavors (before and after photos of lane increases / sidewalk narrowing in many of our cities is kind of depressing).

Cars cause considerable pollution including air, water, light, and noise. The fuel necessary for current cars causes foreign policy problems for us as a nation. Our considerable use of cars in place of walking or riding a bicycle is likely a very significant cause of our obesity, poor health and low life expectancy. Due to our love affair with cars for everything we've created communities where driving is relatively required and this adds a considerable financial burden on to individuals. Our cities and particularly our suburbs are facing a looming financial crisis due to the deterioration of our roads and the need begin undergoing some significant maintenance beginning in about 2020 (for which we'll all likely be seeing some really depressing tax increases).

On the other hand cars are quite useful for many things like carrying large items home from stores, longer journeys (above perhaps 7 miles round-trip), and transportation in extremely inclement weather.

The question then is how accurate are the above concerns and then what can be done about them?

Originally Posted by kickstart

So this is basically a declaration of an ideology for certain urban locations by trying to force change through social engineering, rather than factual information that reflects the big picture, and ignoring that transportation is evolving through technology to address its deficiencies in safety and sustainability.

Originally Posted by spare_wheel

I read your post a couple of times and found it be fact light and polemics heavy. Evolution has little to do with maintaining the status quo.