Vehicles will always have specific use cases, it’s just that most of North America’s infrastructure is designed to accommodate vehicles with everything else being designed around that, put in as an afterthought or just not thought of in the first place (like cycling infrastructure). So people are using these machines for things that are outside their use case, as it has been for almost a century.

As things are right now, people would probably die if cars were outright banned. It’s kind of funny how important personal vehicles have become and as such kind of scary how necessary they are (it’s a bit of a paradox, isn’t it?). To ban cars there first needs to be a good replacement option like well connected rail lines or cycling only roads (or at least protected bicycle lanes). These take time, money, resources and, most of all, political will to create. For most of the developed world money and resources aren’t exactly an issue, the issue is politics that lock up those resources for vehicles.

I.e., funding for my cities major bicycle route that serves 1000+ people everyday is still only funded by my regions parks and recreation board which doesn’t get enough money to maintain it properly. Even though it’s really great, I can’t use it after dark because there aren’t any lights until I get to a shared route and there are a few bridges that are so uneven I have to walk across.

North America has to undo multiple decades of relentless car-centred development and the prevailing political climate means that will happen piecemeal at a municipal level, street by street, year by year. I personally don’t want to wait for that though, so I’m learning Dutch.

I wouldn’t be able to get to work or buy groceries without a car. I also refuse to pay the cost to live in a walkable area, as everything is significantly more expensive. The change required to create a city that is both affordable and livable without a car is impossible at this point.