esa

First question is clear case of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines

Yeah, I think a lot of us frequently hear from suburbanites about how urban living is all “in a pod”, but then … they really should check their mirrors. Throwing stones from glass- and metal boxes, and all that.

People absolutely stop by coffee shops to get something to go in an urban context too. But the queueing that happens inside one of them, maybe even spilling out of the premises, still requires very little area and is pretty benign in an urban context. Especially if you wind up having a little chat with someone.

No, it also matters for some admittedly unfortunate street layouts. E.g. here in Oslo we’ve had some one-way streets with parking on both sides, where we’ve had to remove parking on one side to allow buses and emergency services continued access in the age of SUVs.

Anything that has some sort of geometric constraint gets worse with big cars, and having an extra disincentive on huge cars is good.

edit: Car size creep will also eventually find its way into parking requirements, and parking norms, terrible as they are, require a certain amount of parking spots, not area dedicated to parking, which will make construction even more expensive.

AFAIK NJB is a ST member and recommends them for north americans, so likely that exchange of ideas is a lot more amicable.