According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, approximately one-third of the nation’s residents don’t have driver’s licenses. In her 2024 book “When Driving is Not an Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency,” disability advocate Anna Zivarts argues that not only is America’s car-centric infrastructure harmful to the climate, it also fails to meet the everyday needs of many Americans.
I think this perception is a little inversed or skewed IMO. The congestion is caused by individual cars which block the transit and taxi routes.
The Transit is needed, otherwise more cars need to be added to the road. With increased transite, more cars are removed from the road.
From what I have seen based on the congestion charges implemented in NYC as a example, it’s dropped the number of personal vehicles commuting into the city at any given day. This in turn has dropped the congestion, while in turn dropping taxi commuting times.
Things like congestion charges are a artificial incentive to carpool, take transit, or split the cost of a cab. This decreases the amount of cars while keeping the amount of commuters roughly the same.
Now you could argue with more of the road now “open” or “free”, what stops more taxis from being added to take advantage of a increase in demand for quicker travel.