Yes they’re better for the environment, I didn’t say they weren’t. I said they’re a good band aide but can’t be viewed as a long term sustainable solution.

But yeah, we’re going to have to overhaul our transportation infrastructure in the US in order to overcome this problem long term. Jeff speck does a pretty good job and describing where to get started with that in his book walkable cities. Some first steps might include removing mandatory parking requirements and making it legal to build mixed use developments.