- Ability to get a vehicle on-demand (say within 5-10 minutes) 24/7/365, anywhere in Upstate NY, from cities to boonies.
- That vehicle would need to allow me to transport large goods, bulky goods (to an extent), lumber <6', flammable solvents
- also needs to accomodate 2 medium dogs
- I'd need dedicated bike lanes to the nearby shops and groceries before I could even attempt to use that as an option. There's stores only a few miles from me but the roads to get there are treacherous
There's more but those are the bare minimums, and I don't see that changing any time soon.
This is a great way to put it. Quite often these arguments against cars feel completely blind to reality. We've built our cities and culture around having cars, we can't easily change that. Starting with some small regulations, like having bike lanes everywhere, would go a long ways. I would love to not pay for a second car, and gas, and insurance, but where I leave, it's just not reasonable.
I don't even think if the entire town got together and said "we want a sidewalk on the main drag with Walmart so carless folks don't have to contend with walking on the shoulder with cars doing 55 in a 45" it would go anywhere, cause there's nowhere to even put that without some huge eminent domain grab.