Now is the time for GC to double down on this - it’s free massive publicity for them and if Ed can’t laugh at himself then I guess he’s not so neutral after all.

I lived in a city that was doing a lot of lane count reduction, installation of traffic circles, etc. Results were… mixed. It definitely was achieving “aesthetic improvement” with more trees and green features along what used to be bare asphalt and concrete corridors - sometimes the traffic did “flow better” on the lane count reduced roads, but I think a lot of that was attributable to significant volume diverting to alternate routes. Then they had their “disaster area” situations that only got worse no matter what they did - overdevelopment underserved is a formidable problem.

If they’d make driving less convenient and transit more convenient, the number of cars would decrease significantly.

Of course you’re talking about billions of dollars in construction projects, is it you in the construction industry, or a family member? It took 100 years of infrastructure build to get here, it’s going to take quite a few to change course.

All depends on how the town was built.

I had a friend who had an apartment in Hamburg, roughly 600m from an S-Bahn station. within 50m of that station was the neighborhood grocery. You walk up to take the train to wherever, and on your way home you stop off in the Biergarten first, have a few, then stop in the grocery before walking home - downhill no less for the arms full of packages side of the trip. Not a bad layout, but about half the residents still had cars parked all over the streets which they used more or less daily. So, in some ways, the US arrangement just doesn’t bother with the under-utilized trains, but it also eliminates them as an option which really sucks when you want to go to the airport, or take an inter-city train somewhere…

More cars per hour is less cars stuck in traffic on the roads… the number of cars is a given, getting them off the road ASAP is the goal.

More like horseshit - and if you’re smelling it, you’re not in the lead.

Speed-reducing measures just don’t have much of an impact on overall safe driving behaviors, and that dangerous drivers are going to drive dangerously no matter how fast the speed limit and green light sync are, that’s pretty much a given.

In another county, somebody decided they wanted to screw with a 2 lane road out in the country and they narrowed the lanes - didn’t change the existing 40mph limit, not putting in space in the median, but squeezing the oncoming lanes together in the middle. Said it would “increase safety” through reduced speed, meanwhile the lanes were so narrow that school buses had to drive over the rain/rumble strips in many places to not cross the center line. Sometimes BS is just BS, a politician wanted it, so a politician got it. I called them on it, asked to see the studies backing up their statements, they didn’t have any.

already becoming more of a problem.

Lots of cars on lots of roads with lots of traffic lights has been “a thing” for 80+ years now, nothing about it is “becoming more of a problem” - we’re pretty much at steady state for many years now. Always was a problem, still is the leading cause of death for children aged 1 to 13, but not much changes.

In the last 30 years some major technological advances have rather dramatically improved safety, and I’m not talking about air bags or traction control (though anti-lock brakes do help significantly) - the big one nobody seems to acknowledge is: tire technology. Comparing modern tires to tires from the 1960s/70s - it’s amazing there weren’t more horrible crashes back then than there were.

Put a speed camera on every block

No need. Virtually all cars sold in the US in the last 20 years have enough onboard tattle-gear to just confess to speeding and most other traffic violations and have the citations issued automatically. Couple this with plate readers, cameras and a little roadside downloading of your vehicle info and you can be issued citations every single time you exceed the speed limit by even 0.1 kph. Studies have shown, that’s not a good thing for road safety or - more important to the government - efficient use of the roads to move cars from A to B which is what the roads are for.

Nothing angers drivers more

Most traffic engineering ignores driver mood - it’s difficult to quantify and harder still to place a value on.

Citizen rage and complaints to politicians are effective inputs to the system to get an area examined, but once the examination starts, mood generally doesn’t enter into the equations.

the location of the sensor for going the speed limit

Unfortunately, placing sensors that far back from the intersection is costly, both in initial installation and maintenance. Most sensors in the US are right at the stop-lines for the intersection only (with frustrating effect when an overly light scooter or other phenomenon stops the sensor from sensing a vehicle).

that road is slower, calmer, no road rage or angry drivers and everyone gets through in less time

Perception is a funny thing. Experiencing road rage and anger distorts one’s sense of how much time something takes. The true test of “everyone gets through in less time” is a clock and a car counter.

less perverse incentive for law enforcement to just grab things for shits, giggles and greed

Shits, giggles and power trips are the only reason most LEOs get into the career in the first place. If they’re greedy, they go into politics.

state seizure of the vehicle

Sure, no problems with power-tripping LEOs yet, let’s give them more ability to abuse their position arbitrarily.

more along the lines of losing one’s license.

Don’t forget that the wealthy can afford lawyers to forestall license revocation, usually indefinitely.

implement whatever measures will slow them down

Spike strips?

Big box grocery is a big part of the problem. We’ve got a relative abundance of grocery stores here - in US terms, but that means a 2-5 mile interval between then, and who is going to walk several miles carrying groceries? It doesn’t help when competing groceries open directly across the street from each other, but even fixing that and making distribution of the current stores more even, there would still be a lot of the population 2+ miles to the nearest store, in our relatively high density suburban “core”. Get that down to a maximum of 1km from every home to the nearest grocery and you’re starting to have a walkable / bikeable solution for food.

As for bikes, we also have near-zero practical support for biking to get your groceries - starting to get something calling itself bike lanes, but they’re not terribly safe looking, and then you get to the store and you’re extremely lucky if there’s even a rack provided to lock the bike to - the racks that do exist seem to be in direct conflict with pedestrian use of the sidewalks.

More efficient is more cars per hour. When cars move faster, you can get more cars per hour through those intersections when the lights are green.

Herd animal instincts, desire to lead the pack…