[stephendedalus]

Yeah. That was basically the entire point of the article. That the roads didn't always belong to motorists. That the idea of the roads being car-centric is a fairly recent development in human history. One of my favorite examples is Las Vegas and Moscow, Russia. In the case of Las Vegas they've built entire elevated sidewalks with escalators and elevators. Cars rule in a city where people could, in theory, walk between casinos, restaurants, etc. In Moscow there are many many large sections of the city where the only way to cross the street is to go through the subway. On the upside that city has a pretty great subway system, so it makes some sense.

Either way the point of the article (which a shocking number of people in the comments here and on the article missed) is that it's this chicken and the egg problem that needs to be addressed.