Why are our streets so wide if they predate cars?

April 26th, 2012
history, transit
My residential street is wide enough for cars to drive down it even when there are cars parked on both sides. This would make sense if the neighborhood had been planned around the car, but the house is from around 1895 and the street is even older. Why was it made so wide?

(One possiblity is that the street was narrower but it was widened at some point. But I don't think historic maps are accurate enough to indicate street width.)

Comment via: google plus, facebook, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Microfictions 2

A few more microfictions, still no LLMs.

via Evan Fields August 7, 2026

Linkpost for August

Announcement: for the next while, I’ll be writing the Effective Altruism Newsletter!

via Thing of Things August 6, 2026

Using AI to analyze life patterns

If you’re anything like me, you may have a lot of notes from various introspective activities – annual / monthly reviews, worksheets, therapy notes, etc. Often these notes are just gathering dust in a paper folder or some forgotten corner of Google Drive.…

via Victoria Krakovna July 30, 2026

more     (via openring)