[andrewem]

There’s a saying that transportation is land use and land use is transportation. This article has a great example talking about how a bank wants to occupy a large amount of space on a busy corner mostly with parking that is mostly empty, and take away large portions of the sidewalks for curb cuts so cars can make high-speed turns across the sidewalk. It’s a feature for the bank that what a town would like to be a lively location is either empty or just storing cars, and it’s a regrettable but necessary consequence to the bank that the curb cuts are dangerous or deadly to people walking along the street, thus discouraging people from walking.

Add up many such decisions and you get the current car dependence of the United States.