The Guardian has self proclaimed biases that they openly discuss whenever they ask for more money, so it’s not surprising to see such an unhinged article from them. Cars are great, and create far more happiness than they take away. That’s why they’re wildly popular and why people generally avoid public transit if they can. After all, cars provide fast and convenient transportation, let you carry people and things, on your own schedule, protected from the weather, straight to your destination. They only become inconvenient when cities are overbuilt and too dense, without the right infrastructure to keep traffic flowing smoothly.

Studies like this should be deeply scrutinized because of the biases of their authors (an “urban planning expert”) and their fields. Most studies from academia also have questionable methodology and make vague claims built on bad statistics. This is no different, with the study making weak claims of how something is “associated” with something else, but drawing conclusions that go beyond that. These studies are nevertheless blindly accepted by people who want its claims to be true, as is the case here with the guardian amplifying the study.

As for the article - anytime you see journalists make weird emotional claims like how highways are “fracturing communities”, it’s a signal the article can be safely ignored. Everyday people who aren’t biased would recognize how highways connect people and places. Hyperbolic claims like this reek of activist marketing not serious discussion.