I am a little amazed by all the replies to my post. (I am sorry for miss-quoting the title of the book.) I want to redirect the conversation a little and see what happens.

Most of the solutions proposed here, such as taxing and things, they are all arguments that are hashed over for a long time. Most of the proposed solutions focus about making it more inconvenient and/or more expensive to drive a car. In other words, a punitive aproach. That can be all well and good, and it can work, but the people to put this into effect will be the elected officials and the business owners, both of whom are elected or make money by mostly people who drive cars. The original intent of this discussion thread was to try to find ways of making people prefer something other than the present transportation system we now have.

In the city, it is obvious that the car is less time efficient and more costly than riding a bicycle, but the car keeps its advantages in that you can listen to radio, eat, stay warm, etc. In the suburbs, or the spread out cities, the car has advantages in both speed and convenience. Given the convenience, it is little wonder that most people will pay much to use them.

Preferably, we want to develope a way of having people prefer to bicycle or taking some other form of transportation instead of dragging them into doing what we think they should do. The problem has been defined, but so far the solutions given have been out of reach from the get go. Rebuilding the cities in one big event is out of the question. We have to work with what we have. Bullying people into a solution is not nice. The solution has to evolve quickly from the attitudes of the people and the current layout of the citys and suburbs.