They werent designed by the car lobby, but many did have their transit bought out by the car lobby coupled with the suburban american dream resulting in the demolition of many downtowns and neighbourhoods to make highways and surface level parking lots.
I live somewhere that I can get to nearly everything I need by walking except for work and I feel far more free than a car ever made me feel.
https://www.vox.com/2015/5/7/8562007/streetcar-history-demise
This article covers the GM holding comapny that bought lines. It also mentions how just buying the lines wasn’t the only issue, once cars were normalized they were just allowed to drive on street car tracks which effectively turned street cars into buses and caused massive delays.
The suburban experiment is more responsible for the design of american cities. The post WW2 period saw rapid expansion of suburbs and road networks. Country style living with city amenities. The problem is they stopped building any other type of development and pretty much exclussively building SFH suburbs and strip malls/big box stores.
As a young adult in Europe (the place where walking and biking safely is possible), my rules were:
I am entirely convinced US cities are designed by the car lobby.
Those are good rules.
American cities used to be designed around reasonable things like walking and using Streetcars but then were bulldozed to make way for the automobile.
Not built by, but rebuilt by. And all the tram networks were bought and purposefully destroyed by car and oil companies in the early 20th century.
They werent designed by the car lobby, but many did have their transit bought out by the car lobby coupled with the suburban american dream resulting in the demolition of many downtowns and neighbourhoods to make highways and surface level parking lots.
I live somewhere that I can get to nearly everything I need by walking except for work and I feel far more free than a car ever made me feel.
I know that happened in LA, where else?
https://www.vox.com/2015/5/7/8562007/streetcar-history-demise This article covers the GM holding comapny that bought lines. It also mentions how just buying the lines wasn’t the only issue, once cars were normalized they were just allowed to drive on street car tracks which effectively turned street cars into buses and caused massive delays.
No, I know US used to have the best public transit in the world at one point. I meant they designed the rebuilt cities.
The suburban experiment is more responsible for the design of american cities. The post WW2 period saw rapid expansion of suburbs and road networks. Country style living with city amenities. The problem is they stopped building any other type of development and pretty much exclussively building SFH suburbs and strip malls/big box stores.