Those are caused mainly by cars. Take away the cars and there’s a lot more space and fresh air for everyone.
Even when cars are prioritized, traffic makes even the smallest errands a problem eventually; roads simply don't scale.
And cars are by far the loudest thing about cities at almost all times. They make the very air hostile with pollution and heat. And, worst of all:
> I simply hop in my vehicle and can be anywhere I want in 3-15 minutes
You do this at the direct expense of everyone else in your city. You make the streets unwalkable and the city unlivable. You are insulated from the sounds and dangers that you are creating around you. (I'm just using you as an example, I don't actually blame you for taking the only option you've been given.)
Italy isn't perfect and I could talk about that country's problems a lot, but in terms of transportation, it was more a "right tool for the job" place than here, where we'd walk to many things, ride bikes to others, take the train occasionally, city busses some, and yes, use the car too for some stuff.
Density of people brings those three annoyances, cars or no cars.
Living in such places is eye-opening!
The goal of driving is to get from point A to point B. But when point A and point B are a 5 minute walk, why drive at all? Well, in America we designed our cities and suburbs to make the distance between A and B as large as possible. But we didn't have to do that!
The infrastructure is all here already. They pollute less (ICE) and the no pollution electric ones are far more affordable than EVs. Like 4 of them fit in one parking space. They have storage space for some small groceries too.
Sadly winter and rain sucks.. i guess at least for rain those scooters with roofs could cover that.
(I'll extend it to a ¼—15 minute walk. I happen to live above a kiosk, it is nearer than the car in the basement.)
Discouraging driving is a reasonable public health measure for a safer society.
As for parking, well, it's market price. It's expensive because parking has been subsidized as the default in vast majority of the world.
A vacation is not the same as living somewhere.
And that's in a quite a few areas from pretty dense single-family urban to apartments to what some might call rural.
You can do it but people don't. Hell, walmart is only 30 minute walk away, but I drive most the time. Probably should get my bike fixed and easily accessible ...
Frankly the heat is mostly why I stopped walking. I figured at first I might just be out of shape as hell, but I decided to take one today while the rain had cooled down the temperature and it was mostly pleasant. Comparatively I tried to walk the same route a few days back and gave up early because I was drenching in sweat, slunched over, could hardly see in front of me and my head was throbbing.
Infrastructure is a big thing too. When I’ve had to walk in less urban areas with little or no sidewalk, walking on grass next to the road with massive cars zipping past you is unnerving.
But, in the US and EU, new scooters are (almost?) all 4-stroke today due to emissions regulations. Many are fuel injected for the same reason. I'm not sure if they're required to have catalysts - but that's a fairly simple fix (for new models).
This doesn't even require everybody to live in a city... I'm outside DC and just moment from my front door, I see plenty of opportunities to make transit better and reduce car usage... I'm 1.5 miles from a subway station, but it's impossible to walk to without crossing 1 or more 6 lane roads. There are bike lanes that lead nowhere (literally end a few blocks before the local school then start a few blocks after, then stop before the local shopping center, then start again after). They just built an expensive bike path/running trail as part of an interstate project but they put it right beside the highway - who wants to walk/run/bike 4' from trucks belching diesel fumes and with dangerous sound levels? They could have built the bike path on the other side of the sound wall, but didn't.
I meant the bigger ones driving on roads (small motorcycles), not the small e-scooters. No mixing up passenger and scooter traffic.
My language have separate word for those types but english for some reason don't...
I was driving bicycle for ~10 years and most weather. Scooter would be upgrade.
> How do you deal with being stuck in the 5pm traffic under 90F sun?
You wouldn't if you removed 3/4 of cars and replace them with scooters
> How do you ride it when you're a bit unwell (flu, cold)?
You take a bus. Do you also drive car if you feel terrible ? It's not very safe....
>What do you do with your helmet, boots and protective gear when you go to a restaurant?
I'd imagine if that much traffic moved to scooters the city businesses would accommodate. At least for helmet they often just fit under scooter's seat.
I think most people's - even a lot of Dutch people's - experience is getting off at Centraal and walking to some bar in the centre, or going through the shopping areas, and then extrapolating that to everywhere else in the city so all they imagine is that busyness.