For decades, private and public transport have formed an irreconcilable couple, an irreconcilable opposition.
The former were expanding spontaneously, allowing urban sprawl, eating all the space and generating pollution and congestion.
It was then considered - not without reason - that it was imperative to organise the "modal shift" by taxing the car, making parking difficult and expensive and organising congestion. Conversely, public transport deserved to be massively subsidised and to be a priority in the allocation of state and local authority public speding as well as in the allocation of space. Through hard work, this dichotomous approach has finally achieved some success in major cities where the car has actually backed down.
However, due to the inability of these and other public policies (land and development) to contain urban land price growth and/or to match employment and residential location, urban sprawl has continued, mobility needs have increased, public transport has not been able to cover them, the number of vehicles per household has continued to increase and there are now two deadlocks.
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