There’s more to it. While the military bought in on it, the industries were the major pushers. Many towns had tram cars or cable cars (if you’ve ever been to San Fran, you’ve probably ridden these) but were bought and dismantled up by a then illegal collusion between like GM, Firestone, and oil companies a bit over 75 years ago and the legal cases lasted another 25 years.
Unfortunately this has resulted in such a profound malinvestment in public resources that it has turned a majority of the US into giant open paved areas: dangerous to kids, prohibitive of other small traffic, causes drainage problems, sun/wind exposure, urban sprawl, housing issues, huge parking lots, etc.
There’s more to it. While the military bought in on it, the industries were the major pushers. Many towns had tram cars or cable cars (if you’ve ever been to San Fran, you’ve probably ridden these) but were bought and dismantled up by a then illegal collusion between like GM, Firestone, and oil companies a bit over 75 years ago and the legal cases lasted another 25 years.
There is a famous antitrust case on this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
Unfortunately this has resulted in such a profound malinvestment in public resources that it has turned a majority of the US into giant open paved areas: dangerous to kids, prohibitive of other small traffic, causes drainage problems, sun/wind exposure, urban sprawl, housing issues, huge parking lots, etc.