I don't like this idea of "free car rides" at all, I believe it would actually make things worse. There is a cost vs. convenience trade off between public tran

I don't like this idea of "free car rides" at all, I believe it would actually make things worse. There is a cost vs. convenience trade off between public transport and cars, i. e. public transport is much cheaper, but you have to walk the last mile. Making cars as cheap as public transport would destroy the incentive to use public transport and most people would switch to car travel instead. Also, as others have pointed out, cars are parked most of the time (like 95% of the day), so replacing 5 cars with 1 taxi is unlikely to lead to a reduction, combined with the new incentive (see above) to use cars instead of bikes, buses, trains, etc., most of the problems involved would actually get worse.