[aerojoe23]

As I've already gone down the urbanest/transportation rabbit hole and have watch every Not Just Bikes video and other stuff in that space, I have a different perspective than you. I do think I would have shared some of your views a few years ago.

We don't need to come up with solutions. Countries around the world have already. Some of the larger cities in the USA have started making these changes and seeing results.

The solutions don't need to be comprehensive. While an accepted comprehensive plan maybe nice it does put all the planning up front and makes the projects take a very long time. Doing small things that push people to take other transport options doesn't need to take forever. As many cities demonstrated during the pandemic.

In the USA I think the biggest issue will be political will. But the one thing I'd like to see take off is cities removing parking minimums for new businesses or construction. The minimums were arbitrarily set and stop people from building small businesses. The parking minimums spread things out and drive the need to do something other than walk. Strong Towns has a video on it that does a better job than I can.

In short I believe comprehensive guide to being to reduce cars in cities exist at this point.

[thsbrown]

Definitely agree.

The biggest issue in the US is the will to change things. As you've mentioned, during the pandemic, we've seen how rapidly things can change when everyone is aligned in one direction. Whether you agree with those changes or not the fact is many cities had al fresco dining , and portions of streets reclaimed for it in as little as a year.

Another interesting observation I've had about the US is that commercial space for rent always tends to look way larger than it needs to be! Instead of subdividing a space and cutting the rent potentially in half many commercial units are huge and I can only imagine the rent is so high that only the big chains can afford to rent them.

Of course this also means that things tend to be a little less quaint and walkable, because instead of having 2/3 small businesses you have a massive chain in it's space.

I live in a fairly walkable area in Los Angeles (go figure right?) and I can't tell you the amount of giant open commercial / retail spaces I see that have been dormant for quite a while. I can't help but think I'd they were to slice up the space they would be filled in no time.