Car infrastructure (parking lots, streets) and buffers to make being around car infrastructure less horrible (useless "green space" buffers which can be much wi

Car infrastructure (parking lots, streets) and buffers to make being around car infrastructure less horrible (useless "green space" buffers which can be much wider than the road itself, medians, front lawns so you're set back from the road, et c.) are a big part of why it's so hard to get anywhere without a car. I was skeptical but I've run the numbers and sure enough, once you also factor in the time I spend working to pay for my car & gas I'd save quite a bit of time commuting by bike if my city could be squished closer together by removing most of the car-only stuff (gotta still have a few arteries for goods and for when you need to travel further, but you could cut out like 90%, easy—parking lots are so big, out in the 'burbs). IOW widespread private car ownership actually makes my life worse than if they were outlawed, effectively, and I'm not in the city core. [EDIT] and my family buys cheapish cars and we make way over the median household income for our city—the math's way worse for most people here than it is for me.