Canada

Just because one step doesn’t get you to your destination, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take that first step.

But the first step shouldn't be to focus on car manufacturing... again.

Bikes aren’t practical in a large number of Canadian cities, especially ones with -30 degree seasons. They aren’t practical for disabled people. They aren’t practical for families with young children.

Says who? With the appropriate infrastructure (i.e. like what you see in Montreal), you can have cycling year-round. Hell, I'm not from Montreal, and have used my bike all winter for errands.

And last summer, I was hauling two grandkids around by bike. It's not hard.

Cars are unaffordable, and will continue to be for most people. Even families who can "afford" a car, are being hurt by their dependency.

And taxpayers all lose when cars are the focus of our transportation network.

A lack of road infrastructure also hobbles emergency services such as ambulances. It reduces the ability of trucks to deliver goods to stores. It reduces the ability for utility crews to service utilities such as power lines and sewers.

I didn't say we should reduce our roads to dirt paths and let it all crumble. But we don't need 18 lane highways or 2 lanes of parking on a four lane road... we are building too much to support gridlock by inducing demand.

Emergency vehicles and delivery trucks benefit by having FEWER drivers on the road. This is a fact.

There are a lot of potential issues with aggressively pursuing what you envision. At the very least you’d need to massively re-work city design and zoning, rebuild a ton of stuff. That will take time.

No, it really doesn't. What takes time (and money) is road widening, constant road repair, figuring out what homes to demolish to make room for another road we don't need to build.

Cities and countries that have de-prioritized cars have done so very quickly and with massive benefits to their communities. See Montreal, Paris, any city in the Netherlands, Vancouver, Columbia (the country!), etc.

It costs much less to build out cycling and public transportation, and it can be done much faster than building out infrastructure just for cars.

Shifting to electric cars will take less time, and be a net ‘win’ for the environment, generally speaking. I see no issue with the first persons response saying we should try to make evs in country.

That's not true at all. We don't need or want people making short trips in an EV. It still puts the community at risk (crashes), it still degrades the road surface, it contributes MORE to "tire dust", still keeps people inactive, still keeps the poor at a disadvantage, still removed "community" from our communities. It's just not a path forward.

I'm not saying we need an all-or-nothing solution. We need to rebalance our transportation network and make transportation more equitable and easier to access. There's no reason why the majority of Canadians can't walk, bike, or bus their way around town for the majority of their errands.

For sure, we need to work on that. But most people aren't travelling across their province, or even between cities on a regular basis.

They drive their cars around their community. Down the street to the grocery store. Up the road to visit a friend. They might work within 5km of their home and take a large SUV.

That's the reason we have massive parking lots taking up ungodly amount of space, or on street parking instead of bike lanes, or noise and air pollutions near residential areas.

Those personal choices can be modified today, even with whatever infrastructure is present.

And most people don't realize that if we weren't spending so much money on car infrastructure, we'd have more than enough to put towards other forms of transportation - at a benefit to society, which also reduces costs in other areas like healthcare.

Not OP - their smugness didn't help and you can use whatever means of transport you prefer. But to be fair, I do know people who have kids and use a cargo bike to do everything. This is a viable option for many city-dwellers. Sadly, we are still very car dependant in Canada for longer trips since rail between cities has been underinvested in and suburban sprawl is out of control.

Almost every trip inside cities, between cities, and even to some rural places could be done with alternatives to cars.

I know it can be hard to imagine a world where cars get minimized to filling a small niche role in a broader transportation system, especially when today most people in Canada and the US think cars are synonymous with mobility. Other countries have shown that car lite/free lifestyles are not only be possible with today’s technology, but desirable.

The alternatives are more space efficient - meaning less traffic congestion, they’re better for the environment, and people’s health and wellbeing.

Even if you’re one of the few who insists on keeping your car, wouldn’t it be nice to give safe, viable, and reliable alternatives to everyone else who doesn’t want to drive so they can get out of your way on the roads?

That and I'm still not convinced the cold doesn't ruin the batteries on these things. I keep my e-scooter indoors until the temperature is consistently above zero, which sucks in Canada.

Don't give them ideas they might try to socialize or worse... procreate

I take my kid to daycare every day on my ebike. It's only 5km one way, but I used to do 14km pedal power when I lived in Montréal.

I don't do it to be a smug prick, I do it because it's faster than driving.

Frankly, the infrastructure choices in my city (Kingston) make driving on average slower than 30kph. If bicycles weren't also stuck in traffic lights (same thing that slows all the cars) cycling would be faster than driving is now, and driving would be faster than it is now. Basically our problem is traffic lights.

Facts, interesting histories in how those came to and passed in North America.