> tram and bus - exploded in range and popularity thanks to the availability of cheap technologies popularized by the car.
A lot of people would argue the opposite, see e.g. the alleged GM "streetcar conspiracy". That was in the postwar timeframe when personal car ownership and transitless suburbs took off.
I'm thinking of the "A century ago" period, in concert with what the article starts off with. My perspective is primarily european cities of 200'000+ [1] inhabitants during the early XX century, as that's what I'm most familiar with.
Going by the two cities I spent my formative years in, the local mass transportation networks - tram and bus - were built out to great effect as part of, and thanks to, the general city rebuild spurred by the improving car availability and use in early (pre-war) XX century.
>GM's "streetcar conspiracy"
Salient point, however that happened decades after both the automobile traffic, and the modern mass transport were built out, established, and went through decades of use.
[1] back then that was a sizeable city
I understand that overall mass transit is safer, but it still kills people. Without cars you'd have far more people biking, walking, etc and there are deaths associated with that.
If we switched to mass transit entirely and it saved 20,000 lives per year, the US death rate would fall from 2.74 million deaths per year to 2.72 million deaths per year. And our cities would become mega-metropolises, and crime rates would likely increase (killing a few more of the people we saved). I'm sure in that world there would be enough other bad side affects that a lawyer could write a similar document about the ills of mass transit affecting health, race relations, personal safety, etc.
And we'd give up a huge amount of persona freedom. Through out most of known human history anyone who wasn't rich was unable to travel more than a few miles from their birth place, without joining an army that is. The car opened up the world for everyone to travel anywhere in this country.
>launched a social experiment in urban America:
>the abandonment of mass transit in favor of a new personal technology, the private automobile.
Way to start with a false premise. Before the automobile took over, overwhelming majority of traffic - both personal and commercial - was either by foot, on horseback, or on a horse drawn carriage. There's a reason "horseless carriage" is how the early cars were used, perceived, and legislated.
"Mass transit" was a limited thing mostly between cities - train and horse carriages, and in very limited numbers as inner city trams and metro. Going both by historical accounts, and by period photos, a tram or metro were not the default commute mode for most of workers.
If anything, the mass transit - tram and bus - exploded in range and popularity thanks to the availability of cheap technologies popularized by the car.