Switzerland has fairly high rates of car ownership per capita: 716/1000, vs 811/1000 for the US, according to Wikipedia. The Swiss rate of car ownership far exc

Switzerland has fairly high rates of car ownership per capita: 716/1000, vs 811/1000 for the US, according to Wikipedia. The Swiss rate of car ownership far exceeds that of Germany (561), France (478), or even an auto-oriented country like Italy (625). I think that calls into question your hypothesis: first, direct ownership by voters seems like it should have at least as great an effect on politicians' behavior toward auto transit as would the existence of domestic auto manufacturing, and, second, it demonstrates that Switzerland's car-unfriendly urban planning (and, moreover, extremely high rail density nationwide) does not result in a crippling of the domestic auto market. Of course, this has to be viewed through the lens of wealth; Switzerland also has the highest wealth per capita in the world, so of course people can afford to keep a cheap Maserati for weekend trips. Given that confounding variable, direct comparisons are hard. (But I also don't really understand the comparisons you make to other European cities; Italian inter-city transit is heavily car-based, but large cities like Milan have quite functional urban transit, and large cities and small towns alike have limited-traffic zones. Paris certainly has large thoroughfares, but I don't think there has been a lot of widening; the Champs Élysées predates automobiles and serves more as a venue for parades and the like than as a functional high-throughput road.) So, hard to compare data apples-to-apples, but I think your assumption that urban planning is heavily responsive to the presence of a domestic auto industry is not entirely credible.