?Will we ever outgrow the private car

For over a century, the private automobile has served as a primary instrument of mobility liberation, yet it has simultaneously become the architect of a rigid urban development paradigm. Despite a global surge in sustainable mobility rhetoric, many metropolitan areas remain trapped in a "vicious cycle" of automobile-oriented development. This "lock-in" effect—reinforced by legacy infrastructure, restrictive zoning laws, and invisible economic subsidies—marginalizes alternative transit modes, critically slows them down or even delays their implementation until the next generation

This lecture analyses the recent mobility tendencies in the high-income economies and evaluates whether the dominance of the private car is a permanent structural reality or a reversible consequence of specific planning choices. For this purpose, we explore the potential for Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) to disrupt this loop. We ask: Can a transit network provide individual mobility parity with the private car while reducing the spatial and environmental footprint? Is a "carrot-and-stick" policy regime—combining parking abolition with high-frequency transit—sufficient to shift individual traveler ??behavior in the short and long term 

Applying high-resolution simulation modeling and analyzing recent transit interventions, we provide a roadmap for moving beyond the car-centric "regime" toward a more resilient urban future