The fury around congestion pricing is part of a larger debate that has animated a great deal of big city politics of late: Who owns the streets? The public right of way can occupy as much as one-third of the land in big U.S. cities, and various residents have begun to ask if there might be better things to do with all that territory than moving and storing cars. In New York City, where space is at a particular premium, the possibilities of reusing street space have fueled recent policy debates over outdoor dining, bus lanes, trash pickup, public space and street vendors.

This reappraisal is underway in cities across the country. Atlanta has driven a 12-foot-wide, two-way protected bike lane right through downtown. Cincinnati used Covid recovery money to close streets and help scores of businesses open outdoor dining patios. San Francisco held a citywide vote to close Golden Gate Park’s main road to cars. And Washington, D.C., is preparing to redesign one of the country’s most iconic thoroughfares, the eight-lane Pennsylvania Avenue, with more trees, wider sidewalks and potentially no private car traffic at all.

For most of the history of the American city, streets were multipurpose public spaces. They were for getting from point A to point B, of course. But they were also used as impromptu forums for markets, festivals, trash disposal, storage, everyday socializing and children’s games. This last principle was so commonplace that in 1871, after the horses of a San Francisco omnibus trampled a child, lawyers argued to the California Supreme Court that “in cities children have a right to play in the streets unattended, and it is necessary to look out for them.” As late as the 1950s, Willie Mays could take time between games to play stickball in the streets of Harlem.

The rise of the automobile vanquished that culture completely, as regulation, design and custom established a clear hierarchy of rights to the city.

Today, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority says that of the 1.5 million people who work in the Manhattan core, just 143,000 drive to their job. Yet private cars rule the road, occupying most of the city’s public space, polluting its air and slowing ambulances, buses, mail delivery and other vital services.