> It is only when people cannot afford to drive or driving is too inconvenient (traffic, or narrow streets/lack of parking in Europe, or outright restrictions ), they will use alternative modes of transportation.
This is literally a tautology. "People find driving more convenient, except when driving is less convenient".
> But don't argue that people want to live in urban paradise and some contrived system is simply not giving them what they want. Most people everywhere, when they can, want to drive and live in houses.
Price signals are real. The fact that millions of people choose to pay large amounts of money to live in big cities and not drive instead of moving out to the sticks is proof that it is an extremely desirable lifestyle for a large fraction of the population.
It's not. First, there's the "afford" bit, that is the key. And second obviously it's a tradeoff based on infrastructure available, but my point is unless you outright restrict it, everywhere in the world people will fill up as much driving/parking capacity as available, then a bit more, and only then consider other options. Hence gridlock and expensive/scarce/both parking in all of the "big cities".
That is not true for biking or transit - nowhere in the world, that I'm aware of, do people clog the bike lanes or trains until they are barely usable, then switch grudgingly to other modes of transportation.
People in big cities still drive. I mean, LA discussed here is a big car-centric city, why does this have to be about living in the sticks?
> It is only when people cannot afford to drive or driving is too inconvenient (traffic, or narrow streets/lack of parking in Europe, or outright restrictions ), they will use alternative modes of transportation.
This is literally a tautology. "People find driving more convenient, except when driving is less convenient".
> But don't argue that people want to live in urban paradise and some contrived system is simply not giving them what they want. Most people everywhere, when they can, want to drive and live in houses.
Price signals are real. The fact that millions of people choose to pay large amounts of money to live in big cities and not drive instead of moving out to the sticks is proof that it is an extremely desirable lifestyle for a large fraction of the population.