A constant, steady flow of humanity impedes all movement. Meanwhile traffic worsens, stress levels rise, anger builds. It's truly amazing only six have fallen beneath the wheels. Yet the self-righteous brigades act as if the roadways had been suddenly changed by the evil Capitalist automobile and petroleum industries, aided by their corrupt politicians, and walkers were forced from pleasant pedestrian malls while most of the road space is given over to the internal combustion engine and the devil's own chariot, the automobile. No, to the supercilious, life is much simpler.
Pedestrians are holy, cars are evil, end of discussion.
Their ultimate aim is, of course, the destruction of the automobile. If traffic becomes bad enough, the zealots believe, people will abandon their cars and take public transport. Even though people willingly suffer daily traffic torture and generally eschew mass transit because, at its best, it is uncomfortable and inconvenient and, at its worse, a slice of urban hell where one shares space with the odoriferous, the obnoxious, the creepy, and other dregs of our society. It makes one's private car stuck in endless traffic seem like a touch of nirvana. But to the self-righteous, the people are wrong.