With no money to repair and upgrade older homes, downtowns struggled to survive. At the same time, more and more people moved to artificially-inexspensive new homes on the outskirts of town. The combination of new roads, new cars and new home construction led to an increasing dependence on automobiles. New developments often ignore other modes of transport to provide for the safe movement of cars. In fact, modern roads are designed primarily for the safety and comfort of high-speed motor traffic.
Pedestrian traffic is considered a nuisance and danger to the safe and efficient movement of cars.
In the center of the boulevard are several express lanes for fast-moving traffic. At each side of the express lane is a median island planted with trees. These medians define an outer slow lane on each side of the boulevard for drivers looking for a local address. There is space for parking along both sides of each median island and along the sidewalk. Finally, the outer edges of the sidewalks are planted with formal, orderly rows of trees.