Cars and Cities: The American Experience

No conveyance complicated the urban traffic scene like the mass car. The opportunities and dangers of city traffic emerged, however, before the car appeared. Deaths occurred from pre-car vehicles, including those favored by contemporary reformers, streetcars and bicycles. Police controlled traffic at critical intersections. Smooth asphalt paving eased wheeled traffic, while sidewalks provided refuge for pedestrians. Pro-traffic court decisions, rounded curbs at intersections, and one-way streets sped up the pre-car pace. After 1910 the crush of cars forced traffic engineers to develop the three light traffic signal, pedestrian walk lights, lane striping, traffic directions embedded in streets, and signal changing pressure plates beneath intersection pavements. Traffic police developed methods of moving manpower to accident-prone locations. Accident analysis techniques enabled them to pinpoint driver liability and correctable defects in street design. The reform, Democratic New Deal of the 1930s, led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, encouraged car use when it