Car centrism lobbied by oil and auto industries is very responsible for the laws and policies that forged this situation. But to assume it isn’t sieved through a racists filter as well is naive. The most popular public transport in America, New York, is a perfect example. There’s a subway, fast and frequent, highly convenient in a high density city. They have buses, awful and inefficient when deployed in a traffic adled city without priority lanes. There are black and Hispanic, and white neighborhoods. Guess who got what when the system was designed?

Rural America is a bit different, of course, but guess which communities get all the high capacity high speed highway projects and high frequency maintenance, and who gets stuck with small rural roads and zero maintenance or investment?