I actually had a family code word back before AI scams in case someone outside of the family were to contact a family member on behalf of another family member. So, yeah seems like that would apply here too!
What town is that? It seems like the success of diversifying away from cars depends on the place and how it grew. LA, for example, grew at the time of peak automobile infrastructure investment and it's basically unrecoverable at this point. There are probably other reasons why places like LA are so locked in to cars now, but that's the one that seems obvious to me.
It's a town with one of the highest percentages of bike commuters in the state, actually.
However there's also a regressive aspect that refuses to make any accommodations for anything except cars, and these people have veto power over non-car infrastructure. There is no built-in veto power for new car infrastructure, and in fact existing law requires car infrastructure as a base for any sort of building, for example parking minimums.
Most of the city was built 1960-1980, so based on car designs. But it's small enough that small amounts of change would eliminate car dependence.
