Just let people drive whatever the hell they want as long as they stay off the roads where traffic flows faster than X.
Moped? Chinese golf car larping as an EV? Construction equipment? Shouldn't matter what it is, it should be allowed. There's no reason all this stuff (and bikes and pedestrians) can't coexist in low speed areas. And there are tons of industrial facilities the world over where it does all coexist.
This will never happen though because a lot of the interest in cheap EVs comes from a subconscious desire to not have to share the roads with the poors in their '99 Taurus wagons with mismatched body panels and letting people drive whatever defeats the point of forcing them to drive something palatable to the people making the rules.
Autonomous driving is just around the corner, too, which means that there is no need to waste space on parking structures, either. Here's a Tesla engineer that gave a great technical talk demonstrating their progress as of early this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx7BXih7zx8
EDIT: yes, there are clear reasons why having an three-dimensional underground structure will absolutely affect the social dynamics above-ground in a city, yet it remains true that it is possible to banish cars from downtown cores in the near future (i.e., say by 2030 or so), given the present shift to electrification and autonomous driving. These issues are worthy of debate, and I'm just trying to shift the conversation to what's current. I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade! I love the goal of city streets for people, as exemplified by the beautiful laneways in Melbourne (11 minutes): https://vimeo.com/131396094
If underground construction is so easy now, why not move all the people underground and leave the roads in place? It's much easier to build a lot of unconnected spaces vs a network, and being in a highrise is basically the same as being in an underground box
Having lived in both a basement and a high rise, I disagree. The high rise was fabulous with tons of natural light, high above the noise of the city, with pleasant breezes and no risk of flooding. The basement was damp, had no natural light, transmitted all the noises from the street, and was stuffy because air wouldn’t naturally flow.
