Passed on from a reader, and from this Citylab article, a simple side-by-side comparison of the USA and Germany. Check out some of the transportation stats:

 

It’s not that the Germans don’t love cars. In fact, I hear they have a few car companies there, and sort-of invented the modern day freeway.

Here’s what Citylab’s Eric Jaffe has to say on this:

What’s especially notable here is that driving behavior in the remote periphery of Stuttgart is about the same as it is in the suburbs of D.C. To wit: the two most car-dependent suburbs of Stuttgart (Nürtingen and Geislingen) have shares of all trips by car roughly equivalent to the two least car-dependent suburbs of D.C. (Arlington and Alexandria): roughly 70 to 75 percent in each place. Meanwhile, walking and cycling account for 6 percent of trips in most D.C. suburbs, while in Stuttgart’s most car-oriented areas these modes still account for more than a fifth of all travel.

Tschus!