Sometimes, the soil is loose, making it impossible to dig deep to build underground parkings (or subways, for that matter) because it would make buildings sink. I don't know how common it is, but my city is like this. The area being liable to flooding because of a dam nearby probably doesn't help.
I believe pushing public transports and bikeways from "quite good" to "top notch, really convenient" and free (paid by taxes) would make a long way for all these issues (possibly mandating for cars to say out of the city for most use cases; it would make many situations more difficult to handle though).
I believe pushing public transports and bikeways from "quite good" to "top notch, really convenient" and free (paid by taxes) would make a long way for all these issues (possibly mandating for cars to say out of the city for most use cases; it would make many situations more difficult to handle though).
(European perspective)