Having public transit is not the same as having reliable and competitive public transit. The transit has to be reliably competitive in travel time and cost to truly see people shift to using it. If most car commutes in the city are 25 minutes, and the average transit time is 1hr 15 minutes, the transit is not competetive enough to attract riders except those with no other option at all.
Transit can be improved by extending the network, increasing the frequency, improving the speed (like dedicated bus lanes or light rail lines), and competitive pricing.
All of those improvements do and are happening though, but ridership is used to inform the changes.
The denser parts of cities do have transit that accomplishes what you’re asking for.
Unfortunately a lot of people don’t live in cities at all, let alone the dense parts with the service like you describe. EVs may not be the answer overall, but for many people across the country they’re the only viable first step away from ICE vehicles.
Right now with affordability the way it is, it feels like we’re getting a lot of stick without much carrot.
A lot of people do love in dense areas in cities though. That’s what makes them dense.
And programs like the carbon pricing makes those places more attractive to build denser housing.
EVs don’t even need to be the only alternative, if the carbon pricing is encouraging someone to buy a more fuel efficient ICE vehicle, the incentive is still working.
I still have such a hard time understanding how people are calling the carbon pricing setup a stick, most of us are getting more money back from the program. Yes overall oil prices worldwide have gone up since the program started, but international oil prices aren’t impacted by Canadian carbon pricing policy…
