Activists in many cities argued that the transportation planning process valued the flow of automobiles above the stability of the neighborhoods.
Not all their arguments were new, but their influence was: the views of lonely critics in earlier years now began to affect local and national policies.
Nor were all the critics hostiles to cars, but the effect of their rebellion was to permanently sully the reputation of the automobile as the salvation of city and society.
They argued one or more of several proposition: that powerful interests were foisting the highways on an unwilling populace; that the justifications for the projects rested on narrow thinking and faulty logic; that mobility was not an end in itself, and it was foolish to promote movement at the expense of urban stability; and that the roads both presumed and promoted an unhealthy reliance on automobiles to the exclusion of other modes of transportation.