> Which is why the idea of banning cars in the US pretty much anywhere outside of Manhattan and maybe a few downtown roads is fanciful. Perhaps the most compel

> Which is why the idea of banning cars in the US pretty much anywhere outside of Manhattan and maybe a few downtown roads is fanciful. Perhaps the most compelling reason to do so is safety. For example, it's universally agreed that banning cars from Market St., which was approved yesterday here in San Francisco, is going to save many lives over the years. It is a very dangerous street and was never designed for the traffic configuration it has today. (Search for "sf market st deaths" on Google.) Even if you were to suppose that prohibiting private vehicle traffic on Market is just going to shuttle it onto nearby roads (which is not typically what happens, empirically, but anyway), that itself would be a large safety improvement, because it would help to separate pedestrian/bicycle/streetcar traffic from private autos.