Context: i am in Europe so might be irrelevant to US.
I was thinking : we already have a usable solution to traffic jams. It’s called parking lots, as the ones in airports. You drop your car, then you take public transport to go anywhere. So imagine doing the same, but on daily basis. Build many such parking spots outside of the city , irrigate with public transport, make the price reasonable for daily usage (fuck you Charles de Gaulle Airport and your 14€/day fee). Boom, reduces your traffic by X% every morning.
As someone who drives regularly from Reims to Paris, I d be glad if such option existed, so I wouldn’t have to drive on Périphérique.
The two reasons I think it’s not used is “planning” and “politicians”. The latter isn’t good at former.
In the US my mom used to do something like that, but the time it took to transfer to the train into the city and pay for the ticket and parking at the train station, it ended up taking about the same amount of time and cost about the same.
After a year, she just drove into the city as it was about the same cost and more convenient.
My Australian town of half a million people is about as car based as a US town. We have park and ride carparks in each group of suburbs, on the main bus routes, so you can drive about 5 minutes, park for free, and catch a bus the rest of the way
It saves about $15 a day in parking, and the bus costs about $6 a day
The alternative using just public transport uses a suburban bus to get to the main bus routes (which run each 5 or 10 minutes), but the suburban buses only run hourly, or half hourly during peak times, and add about half an hour each way to the trip
But doesn’t the parking building just scan your plates when you arrive and leave? Swipe your card for the train. Done.
Are you being sarcastic? It is not like that at all. Also the trains stop running kinda early, so you can’t stick around after work.