Most Americans have no choice but to drive. How do we change that?

We produced this video in 2020 as part of our US election coverage. The rest of those videos are at http://vox.com/ElectionVideos

In the middle of the 20th century, the US government made a decision that would transform American cities: It built a huge system of interstate highways, many of which went right through the downtowns of its biggest cities.

This sealed the country's fate as a car culture, and today we're seeing the results. In most cities, it's extremely difficult to get around without a car, in part due to public transit systems built to serve an outdated commute. And when our politics turn to infrastructure, the government often favors building new roads and highways instead of improving and expanding public transportation.

The result is a system that forces more Americans to drive, at the expense of those who rely on public transit. It's also the biggest contributor to our country’s carbon footprint. Fixing that over the long term will require a reimagining of American cities and towns. But there's also a way that, if we wanted to, we could improve American transit systems, and get more people riding them, in a matter of weeks.

This was the seventh in our series of 2020 election explainers, all based on viewer suggestions. Watch the others, which cover the stakes of the election on:
1) Climate change:    • How America can leave fossil fuels be...  
2) Voting rights:    • What long voting lines in the US real...  
3) Reproductive health:    • How US abortion policy targets the po...  
4) Public schools:    • How US schools punish Black kids | 20...  
5) Police reform:    • How the next president could change p...  
6) America’s role in the world:    • How America could lose its allies | 2...  
7) Transportation:    • Why American public transit is so bad...  
8) LGBTQ rights:    • Why LGBTQ rights hinge on the definit...  
9) The eviction crisis:    • Millions of Americans can't pay rent ...  

For Jonathan English’s research comparing Canadian and US public transit: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/featur...

For research on suburban commutes from the Brookings Institution’s Adie Tomer, Joseph Kane, and Jennifer S. Vey: https://www.brookings.edu/interactive...

For more of Vox’s coverage on public transportation: https://www.vox.com/2015/8/10/9118199...

For more historical maps on how the federal highway system transformed cities: http://iqc.ou.edu/2014/12/12/60yrsmid...

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