Yeah that's a bold assumption. My bet is on "it's going to get progressively worse and never better". I have yet to be proven wrong. Since the day I was born everything's been enshittening with only inconsequential cosmetic improvements (lol technology, what a joke).

If nothing else, car dependency is fiscally unsustainable. We might go kicking and screaming towards the solution, but eventually people will have no choice but to abandon the financial suicide that is making your city car dependent.

It's things like bikes, ebikes, electric scooters, monowheels, etc.

!micromobility

There's a massive failure condition for your example - sure, autonomous cars behave like trains when they communicate with each other to sync acceleration and deceleration, but they can also separate themselves from the collective to drive you to the door of your home. In the train metaphor this would be like you sitting in your own train car, and the train car separating from the rest of it and driving you to your doorstep.

Electric motors are now capable of >90% regen, so the braking energy argument against short stops doesn't work anymore (and the energy during motion strictly less than a rubber tired vehicle with a worse aspect ratio so long as the trip is no longer).

The amount of rail needed for short distance distribution networks could still be prohibitive in regions designed for road though. Even then one could still argue that the total infrastructure costs are lower by moving the destinations slightly given how much roads cost to maintain.

Just to pick on one point, as a tangent, the government paying for roads with little cost to the freight carriers is a major, major problem. If the cost of transport is not factored into the cost of goods, it breaks the feedback mechanism of prices in the market affecting the supply of road transport, both per se, and in relation to other, possibly more efficient, means of transport. I came up with a reductio ad absurdum scenario to illustrate better: Imagine the government provided free air freight across oceans, without limit.

It’s pretty obvious what would happen: The logistics companies would abandon cargo ships, which cost them money, for the free air service. It would be horribly inefficient and wasteful, but that would not be their concern. We’d end up in the same situation that we are today with roads; our governments are going broke trying to pay for it. (In that world, I also imagine that people consider the service the normal baseline that they’ve structured their lives and businesses around, and can’t fathom ending it, just like roads in our world.

Anyway, passenger rail service has never been profitable. Railroads just operated passenger trains as a condition of being allowed to operate freight routes, which the government had subsidized with land giveaways. The question is whether passenger is more sustainable fiscally than roads for personal vehicles, and the survival of rail freight against massively subsidized road freight suggests that it would be. At least for longer, intercity routes.

Trains themselves aren't a one-size fits all solution as there are various types that each need their own form of investment (which is a lot $)

Trains(international and intercity), metro(across the city) and trams(across the city) - all of them use same wheels. They are not that different.

when roads are compatible with both personal transport

*(here personal transport excludes everything that is not a car)

and large trucks with little investment by the transporter (govt pays for road maintenance).

Maintanance is most expensive part of car infrastructure. At least between those that directly paid.

Trains can transport higher loads of people though. So ultimately both trains and busses need to be the priority.

We can all live near a train stop. Roads were built everywhere. Train rails are actually not as expensive to build

That is an organizational problem because my country next to it has all those things at just about every train stop (Switzerland).

One of the leading causes of death for children in North America is from cars. Well funded and built transit should be accessible to all in their urban areas. Stops should have sheltered waiting areas with adequate and maintained seating. Good maintanence and funding would reduce equipment failures in elevators and other equipment. Ideally we densify around this transit as well which would help to reduce travel distances for people with movement disabilties and promote walkability. 95% of the time well designed and funded transit paired with good urban density and zoning will be more accessible to those with disabilities than private vehicle ownership.

Elderly people use electric mobility scooters at Disney literally all the time. They're pretty great for the elderly so long as there's accessability ramps everywhere.

Escalators and elevators being out of service seems like an issue of lack of investment in public transit.

And cities can be built around public transit and micromobility while still allowing cars. Generally, you'll have better access for emergency vehicles, and you can do the same for people with disabilities.

That's definitely not a problem everywhere. The buses we use in Canada are very disability friendly and we have programs to teach kids how to ride the bus alone. We have bike racks on the front of our buses too, so we can combine modes of transportation.

The biggest problem with public transit over here is lack of funding and infrastructure. The bus system is intentionally kept shitty here so that people will opt to buy cars where possible.