The message is clear: The storage of empty vehicles is more important than the neighborhood’s fundamental mode of transport. Which is why some of the tensions that have flared during the coronavirus crisis-over runners using the sidewalk, or pedestrians using the bike lane-are particularly tragic. These confrontations are often ascribed to some personality flaw of the runner or pedestrian herself-she’s rude or entitled-rather than seen as an indictment of the misguided system that pits two people on a narrow sidewalk against each other in the first place. No one yells at a parked car, and the driver who scuttles by in the road gets a free pass, even as his driving imposes noise, pollution, and elevated climate risk upon those around him.

— The Pandemic Shows What Cities Have Surrendered to Cars, Tom Vanderbilt in The Atlantic