Canada

Your comment seems very "all or nothing". No one's talking about eliminating all parking everywhere tomorrow. However a large percentage of our parking is never used and this the problem is exacerbated by mandatory parking minimums as the article points out. From the article:

“We have a chicken and egg problem. The problem is we want dense development but development isn’t initially dense enough,” said Dawn Parker, a professor at the University of Waterloo’s School of Planning. “Retail activities, other activities, employment locations are so spread-out people still need to have a car.”

Plus, with our system of free parking, those in our society who can't afford cars/aren't able to drive are subsidizing you and me when we drive places. The cost of parking is split amongst all customers (in the case of private parking) or residents (in the case of municipal lots), even those who take public transit, walk, or bike.

I do want to comment on a few things you said:

There is no way in this or any world that I am hauling $300 worth of groceries to a bus stop, just to sit there and wait half an hour (at -20C) for a dilapidated bus that may or may not even run on time and has the risk of someone stealing some of those overpriced groceries on the 30 minute ride it would take to get home.

You probably buy $300 worth of groceries at a time because the store is inconvenient to get to (due to Euclidean Zoning and our general lack of density). I honestly do the same thing. However, when I lived in a denser city, I commuted by bike or bus and would grab groceries every day on my way home, and it added minimal time to my travel. I'm not arguing you should move or drastically change your life, but that the city should improve around you.

Similarly, all the problems with the bus are trivially solvable if we chose to invest in public transit instead of the ridiculous amount we spend on roads and car infrastructure.

I live in Saskatchewan and it will very frequently get to -30 or below. I cannot ride a bike in that safely without risk of frost bite, so cycling is out of the question (at least in the winter).

Ehhh . . . Oulu, Finland would disagree with this, as would I. I definitely feel less motivated to go out in the cold, but it's possible with the correct infrastructure and clothing.

“We need tons of parking lots until we get walkable cities” gets things totally backwards. Walkable cities are impossible because of the stupid amount of parking lots we have.

The dilemma you pose of “parking vs walkable cities” isn’t even real: we massively overbuild parking lots so we can stand to get rid of most of them. I’ve been to SK many times. Strip mall parking lots are half empty even during the busiest times of day. It’s insane. You could build housing on tons of that land without ever causing parking lots to fill up.

Here in Vancouver, there are almost no strip mall parking lots and the absolute number of cars is higher than anywhere in SK, and yet, there’s STILL too much parking. There’s almost always parking within a block or two of any store outside of the downtown core. The distance you walk probably isn’t that different from across those huge parking lots.

Honestly, we can go on a massive parking diet and, because we overbuild parking so much, there won’t even be any downside for drivers.

There was some buzz about Durham Region (Ontario) becoming "15 minutes cities" but I'm not sure the legitimacy behind it because all I ever really saw were fliers by conspiracy nutjobs to fight against it because of how apparently bad the idea is...

First and foremost we need to send these people to their own little island where they can suffer from their own stupidity in isolation.

I don't know why, but people saying it very regularly gets to - 30 really grinds my gears because we record the temperature, we know exactly how many days a year are like that. I think we have different ideas of 'very frequently', I'm curious how many days a year you think very frequently is.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/cold-weather-snap-saskatchewan-1.4997353

Edit: Just FYI, I'm not griping at the rest of your comment at all, not really addressing it, it's just that one thing.

The article is blaming politicians.

"Much of this has to do with “parking minimums” – or the requirement that developers must build a certain number of parking spaces for any new development."

The article isn't blaming the people physically parking a vehicle, but is blaming the policies that dictate the parking spaces.

Imma be real pedantic here and I apologize.

Politicians are people. In many cases specifically on the municipal level these are people who have day jobs because they get paid shit as a representative. Technically, people are to blame. People have the power to change the situation. The problem is people aren't changing the situation.

Well, I mean, people vote in these politicians, and the politicians are the people.

If no one runs for office that wants to change things, the people who do want change should probably put up someone as an option to vote for.

If they don't win, the people chose not too change

It's only a politicians fault if they campaign on the promise to change and then don't do it.

Like a lot of complex problems, the housing issue has multiple contributing factors. The other issues you brought up definitely are valid, but that doesn't invalidate the issues with parking and density. Most parking lots are way, way oversized.

Did you read the article? It mainly focused on parking minimums and density. It doesn't matter whether or not individual people use those parking spaces, it's a systemic issue!

Cars are a problem caused by the rich