If you were building Melbourne or Sydney today you would have population densities of Paris, New York etc . Thousands of people living in multi storey buildings jammed together . As the city evolved so would the transport system. People commuting around the city rather than in and out like we do.
Unlike Melbourne and Sydney where except for inner city which is a recent phenomenom, you have single of two storey detached housing everywhere.
The population density of Paris is 5 times that of Melbourne. Many of those dense cities were already built out before personal mechanised transport was a thing, particularly in Europe.
In order to convert Melbourne into a version of Paris or New York you would have to knock the inner 20km circle down and start again. And even then, the transport corridors from the outer suburbs would still be too small.
So, while in a perfect world you might have that density, we don't. And so, you have to work with what you've got.
We already have a car based transport system so all we need to do is improve that . I don't know why proper ride sharing hasn't been mandated yet as even a moderate version would reduce congestion, pollution, emissions and cost masively. Either/or , converting those cars to electric would reduce emissions even more.
We already have the roads. We already have a vehicle based economy to service the vehicles. We already have any electrical system on which to build. All the components already exist as opposed to bulldozing the city, disrupting the real estate market and asking people to completely change their lifestyles. And, it can/is being done progressively.
While it is wise to see what others are doing, it doesn't mean we have to replicate their model exactly. Sure, Norwegians get most of their power from hydro. Here in Australia we have one of the largest solar resources in the world and we have huge wind resources that the Norwegians don't. We also, apparently , have thousands of pumped hydro suitable sites on the east coast to store energy. We already have all the components needed to have a similar system to the Scandanavians for a large percentage of the population.
Right now, if evs were more price competitive, we could have millions of cars in Australia powered by electricity. We would still need ICE vehicles for rural areas, large trucks, ships etc but we could easily take out a big chunk of emissions easily in the urban areas.
So, yes , it is much easier to progressively change out the propulsion system than relocate millions of people.
