A portion of our much lamented property taxes should be designated as an assessment for parking — that is, how much of the property is devoted to garage or driveway or straight-up surface lot.
Then that portion should have its rate jacked up for all non-residential property, and cities should be encouraged to eliminate non-ADA parking minimums from their zoning rules.
The proceeds from the increase, born by non-residential property owners, would go entirely to public transit. Any owner, residential or otherwise, wanting to decrease their property taxes would have the option of demolishing unwanted parking and asking to be re-assessed. Residential owners would see a net decrease from this; others would limit their increase.
Owners of other than primary residence detached housing would have the option of passing some or all of the increase to their tenants / employees / customers by charging for parking.
Wider streets should be narrowed by having one lane each way reserved, with barriers, for buses only. Speed limits should be designated as only applying to private vehicles, and lowered.
Any person living, working, or enrolled as a student anywhere in the county should be issued a pass good for more-or-less unlimited rides between their home and place of employ or schooling. Programs should be instituted making it simple for businesses to offer similar passes to their customers, at whatever price made business sense. Likewise to include similar passes as a benefit of medical insurance, for non-emergency rides to in-network providers.
Property taxes on private vehicles should be raised in ways that more closely track vehicle weight per passenger seat. The size above which driving requires a commercial license should be decreased.
Heat maps should be created showing where the greatest and least built density exists. Any new construction, or private utility placement, maintenance or expansion should receive special assessments based on distance from existing centers of greatest density. Public utilities should, and private utilities should be able, to use the same maps to set higher rates with distance from the same centers. Public utilities should embark on programs of gracefully decommissioning lines the farther they are from the same centers.
In short, it should be made more and more expensive and otherwise onerous to build and go about one’s life in ways that involve owning and parking private vehicles, the moreso as they involve longer distance travel in such vehicles. It should be made free to get to work or school via public transit — at least until the other policies have shortened the typical distances involved to the point that it becomes unusual for people to need the assistance.