At this point they’re often doing more harm (in terms of wide streets with channelized intersections making pedestrians less safe from traffic) than good (in terms of providing truck access in the event of a fire), especially for stations serving single-family neighborhoods.

They need to pay the slight extra cost to have different kinds of appropriate equipment for different areas; it’s worth it. It doesn’t happen because the fire department isn’t considering the traffic effects and nobody’s really looking at the big picture.