Road design, safety and Vision Zero

[plam]

I mean personal vehicles. What I’m saying is that car dependence (of the city) makes things more difficult for people with kids, especially people with lots of kids: you need to have enough car seats for the little ones, and enough seats for everybody. If the whole family is walking somewhere, it doesn’t really matter how many there are or what age. The same is true on public transit (which in many ways is really just supercharged walking). But as soon as you drive somewhere in your own or a rented vehicle, you have additional logistics to consider.

This doesn’t mean I’m promoting a return to the days of 10-child families (and infant mortality and all the other ills that we have worked to reduce), just observing that cars work worse for families with kids than they do for singles and couples. It’s not that you can’t get a family vehicle — minivans are great! — but even if you have the necessary capacity you still have to deal with carseats.

I see people hauling their kids around with electric cargo bikes, so you don't always need a car if you have kids.

It is certainly possible but there is a lot of social pressure to have a huge car. Like, I'd do the cargo bike, and in some countries everyone does it, but Canada is not such a country. It does help for cars to be less convenient and for bicycles to be perceived as safer (infrastructure and road design!)

Cars are actually not that convenient for many things, but they're perceived as being convenient. Go figure. Certainly walking and transit can be more convenient if the systems are running properly.