Comment Re:EV sales in *USA* plummet (Score 1) 251
Try doing that in the US.
You can do that in a lot of places in Oregon because it created urban growth boundaries in the 1970's.
There's no magic cure. It would require razing down almost all of the entire country.
Sure there is. Just lower the speed limit to 45 on freeways, 20 in town and 10 on residential streets. People will shorten trips and use transit, walk and bike more. You don't need to "raze" anything. All the empty space in cities used for autos will be valuable and filled in.
Actually, what will happen is that people will move away from places that do this, or they will continue to drive, but more slowly, or they will ignore the speed limits and pay the tickets.
The only way to shorten trips is to increase density, and that can't just magically happen.
Walking and biking are fine if you are only a couple of blocks away from where you are going. They don't work for long distances. So they don't solve the problem, either.
You either have urban density or you don't. If you do, then cars don't work very well. If you don't, then alternatives don't work very well. There's a grey area in between where neither one works very well.
I'm thinking about my rural hometown in west Tennessee, and imagining middle school kids biking to school for up to an hour each way while carrying books, musical instruments, gym clothes, etc., and I'm laughing at how well your "magic cure" would work. It's the sort of thinking I'd expect from someone who has never lived somewhere with fewer than half a million people.