NYC is quite car-centric by international standards. Compare to London (or Paris, or lots of other places), which in response to COVID has:
* Used congestion pricing as a tool to reduce pollution/returning traffic/mode-shift to cars
* Shut off large areas of their city to cars
* Rapidly built pedestrian/bike networks to accommodate for non-car movement
While NYC has:
* Indefinitely postponed congestion pricing
* Defunded bike safety and public transit improvement initiatives
* Not built any cohesive bike or pedestrian systems to encourage non-car transport
Of course in pre-COVID times, NYC severely lagged in both pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure/investment, and famously has some of the most expensive public-transit construction costs in the world.
re: car-centric cities, agreed that somewhere like Nashville is not going to have these kinds of problems. However, a large swath of Americans live in public transit or carpool-reliant cities (NYC/SF/Seattle/DC/Chicago/Southern California, many large southern cities). Mode-shift to private transit would increase traffic 10-20+% in most of these places, which I think we can all agree is not ideal for pollution, gridlock, parking needs, public health, etc.
* Used congestion pricing as a tool to reduce pollution/returning traffic/mode-shift to cars
* Shut off large areas of their city to cars
* Rapidly built pedestrian/bike networks to accommodate for non-car movement
While NYC has:
* Indefinitely postponed congestion pricing
* Defunded bike safety and public transit improvement initiatives
* Not built any cohesive bike or pedestrian systems to encourage non-car transport
Of course in pre-COVID times, NYC severely lagged in both pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure/investment, and famously has some of the most expensive public-transit construction costs in the world.
re: car-centric cities, agreed that somewhere like Nashville is not going to have these kinds of problems. However, a large swath of Americans live in public transit or carpool-reliant cities (NYC/SF/Seattle/DC/Chicago/Southern California, many large southern cities). Mode-shift to private transit would increase traffic 10-20+% in most of these places, which I think we can all agree is not ideal for pollution, gridlock, parking needs, public health, etc.