While I appreciate the contrarian view, it’s not either/or. Cars are a wonderful thing and facilitate independence and long distance travel. Electric cars are even more wonderful things. And Bikes are wonderful for active transport and but not a substitute for cars
It should be an either/or for travel within cities. I live in London and own a car, which I never use to travel around the city or at rush hour, only to leave on trips or for occasional movement of bulky items. The congestion charge (£10/day) and schemes such as local government closing off many residential streets to through traffic (which makes Islington wonderfully pleasant to walk/cycle around, it’s awesome!) help make this a no brainer, but I’d be happy for things to be taken much further with more restrictions and charges, as there are still far to many cars in London.
Cycling infrastructure still needs much more investment and we should be changing rules to massively encourage electric micromobility as well. The safety arguments against it are nonsensical when compared to the cars it replaces, and better provision on roads would make it even safer.
I never said it was an either/or situation here, but when governments put money toward things you can see where their priorities are.
Right now with continuing near zero investment in active transportation the government is saying that its pretty much going go with the near status quo, minor and easy to achieve solution. The amount of CO2 reductions that follow will reflect this lack of ambition.
