It would be helpful to know what cit you live in. I’m in Philadelphia. There’s literally a bus stop 12 steps from my front door. The next three closest stops are each a block away. I can not fathom a city that doesn’t have a bus stop more than a fifteen minute walk - let alone ten miles(!) away.
In my city, it’s substantially cheaper to live here than in the suburbs with a car. This certainly fluctuates across the country but 5-10x more is ridiculous. Maybe twice as much at most or three times as much in places like SF and NY. As I stated from the beginning, those are exceptions.
You have it backwards. It’s the suburbs that are the cause for so many highways. You can’t have suburbs without highways to get around. Cities are self contained. I have no need for a highway. Nor a parking lot. It’s the people who live in the suburbs who visit and work in the city who use parking lots. This is all apparent in your own statement; “selling a car… cities build more highways” is grossly illogical.
You are clearly hyper focused on people who live in a suburb and want to get to a city. You are ignoring the entire point of the conversation.