I can’t help but think that cars (EV included) just aren’t the answer. I feel like bikes aren’t the answer either. I feel like the metro and high speed rail are.
Most people don’t drive because they like driving (US), most people drive because they have to. And that sucks. You shouldn’t feel like you’re forced to drive. Because that’s auto insurance and auto registration that you have to pay.
You can’t eliminate roads altogether. You need at least one or two lanes for fire trucks, ambulances, garbage trucks, etc. but you can create pockets of no car zones.
People like me who like cars, should be able to have places we store our cars. We should have places where we can explore the limits of our cars instead of driving through traffic. But that should be a strictly extracurricular activity.
In the no car pockets, you should be able to walk to a grocery store, hardware store, that has what you need. You should be able to have mixed zoning. Single family units shouldn’t be the norm. If I own a car but it’s not my dedicated form of transportation, I can buy a cooler car and I don’t need a garage next to where I live to store it. I can store it outside no car pockets so that I can take public transport to my car and then take my car to the track.
Yes, it’ll take awhile to get there but why aren’t we doing more to that end? Am I too idealistic?
Genuinely curious: why do you need a weeks worth of groceries? From living in a big city, albeit in Asia, the benefit of living close to the market is that I can just go pickup what I need for the next few days, and then come back later for the rest.
A few reasons, but the big one is time. It takes less time to shop once a week than it takes to go every few days.
It also lets me save money by shopping in bulk for nonperishable items. I can throw 24 rolls of toilet paper in the trunk of my car, or if there is a sale on frozen vegetables I can stock up.
The other reason is personal, meaning it doesn’t apply to everybody, but I have psoriatic arthritis. It comes and goes, but right now I can’t walk to the mailbox at the end of my driveway without two tylenol and my cane. Thankfully, I’m not using a wheelchair right now, but using a cane on the bus is no picnic, and it means I have to carry everything with my bad shoulder. With my wife, two kids, and a dog, even a two day shopping trip is probably more than I could carry.
But that’s why my wife does most of the shopping lately. Time is still the number one reason.