[moving_sofa]

The car infrastructure built to provide you that comfort has very big negative externalities to others. Among them:

1/ The massive amount of space dedicated to cars, taken away from pedestrians and cyclists. Cars are the most space-inefficient way of moving people around, if anything they should be the _least_ prioritized in public space allocation.

2/ Streets become hostile places to pedestrians, to children, to communities. Why do children not play outside anymore? No, its not the phones+internet, its the cars. Phones+internet are symptoms. Streets have been made into traffic sewage.

3/ Economics. If you need a 1500kg / 15000$ machine to carry a 70kg adult to a nearby grocery store, then there is something fundamentally wrong with your city planning. Alternatives should be there by default: walking and cycling infra is the solution. Cars were meant to give us freedom, it seems they took it away from us.

4/ Air pollution. EVs will partially solve it and no I am not going to wait for them, many micro particles PM are from tires wear and tear and engine (I dont have full details).

5/ Inclusivity. Cars are only for adults 18+. Children and teens have no mobility freedom. They are hostage to their parents to go from A to B. American suburbs are the most teen boredom place for a reason. Elderly and disabled are also restricted. Cycles are much more inclusive to all these groups. And cycle infra is not only for bicycles: its for mobility chairs, three-wheeld cycles, basically any humans-on-wheels vehicle.

This is not about bicycles, its about civil rights issue. Bicycles just happen to be one of (the preferred, the most visible?) method of traveling at a human scale.