This feels shockingingly similar to how an AI could conclude to caring for humans. The humans are stimulated to be content by being in the matrix, their physical needs are met by the machines, no humans were “harmed” by the machine’s standards, and humans are for the most part unable to interfere with the machine’s decisions and goals.
Motorcycles are loud and the exhaust can be pretty bad, we don’t want everyone buying one to get around the congestion fees. They still take up more space than a standard bicycle or someone who took the subway.
I quit drinking pop in my late teens to early 20s. It is genuinely difficult for me to finish a single can of pop now, no idea how I drank 2 litres of it a day as a kid without getting fat or diabetic.
In Canada the resistance to change is fueled by “this is how we’ve always done it” which is false as Canada was founded before the car was made. There is also a conflict of interest to reduce dependance on roads as we have a decent auto manufacturing sector and many people rely on jobs related to roads and cars. With zoning there is hesitancy to change because many of our politicians are land lords using single family homes as rentable apartments and they know that their property values will drop if we start building real multi unit residences and affordable housing.
Our cities have been caught in this style of development for decades and to try to change it really goes against the current political grain. It takes a brave and determined politician to try for change and they will meet resistance from their colleagues and parts of their voter base the entire way.
Transit needs to be competitive with cars to really see a difference. In your own example a bus somehow takes 20 minutes longer to get downtown than walking there would, which is completely ridiculous but possible with how american transit is managed.
The transit needs to be nearly as fast and convenient as cars are. The city could take some of those 6 lane roads, dedicate a bus lane, and reduce the travel time of the bus by reducing time spent in traffic and prioritizing signals at intersections for the bus.
As for zoning, it is to blame because zoning prevents density and denisty helps support transit by increasing ridership in denser areas. If every building is limited to 1 or 2 stories and has a massive parking lot, it takes more space and everything gets farther away, increasing travel times for all transportation. This also increases the costs of road maintaince, sewer and water pipes, elecitricity delivery and is just pretty much one of the most ineffecient ways for a city to use space and resources.
That is because many cities/politicians refuse to enforce reasonable noise limits on automobiles. It should have never been legal/normalized to have exhausts loud enough to need hearing protection while outside of the vehicle.