In America, when it comes to transportation, highways win, most of the time. Through the latter half of the 20th century, a lot of freeways got built, often at the expense of people who did not have much money or political power, and often had darker skin than average.
It will take some work to build a less car-centric and more equitable system that does not take advantage of poor neighborhoods by building freeways through them. Veronica Davis is working on this for the city of Houston, and she provides a guide in her book Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities. She visits with Angela Decker about some of the principles.