Hey look! We made it to Harvard on the book tour!

Our final Life After Cars book tour roundup episode is here, with our reports from Atlanta, Memphis, Chicago, Montréal, Orlando, Portland, Maine, and many, many more great North American cities! We get into the good, the bad, and the ugly of everything we saw out there on the road. Plus a discussion of…Reverse Copenhagen Syndrome?

Speaking of book tour, while it’s officially over we do have some events lined up for the fall and even into 2027. There’s one we really want you to save the date for, however, and that’s our return to Hunter College. As you may remember, we had a fantastic show there with our friend Ray Delahanty, aka CityNerd, last year. We’ll be back—minus CityNerd but with other special guests TBA—on Wednesday, October 21st, exactly one year since the publication of Life After Cars. The show will be a chance to celebrate with all of your and we’ll take the opportunity to measure just how far New York has come under the Mayor Mamdani. There will be a lot to talk about! Patreon supporters will get exclusive pre-sale access to tickets, so stay tuned.

Order our book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, out now from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Save 20% on everything in our official merch store with code HOTBIKESUMMER.

Buy a certified, pre-owned e-bike from Upway or sell your own bike! Visit Upway.co to get rolling.

Thanks also to Cleverhood. Listen to this episode for the latest discount code and get 15% off the best rain gear for walking and cycling.

TheWarOnCars.org

In most parts of the United States and elsewhere, sidewalks exist in a legal grey area. They are public spaces that, at least when it comes to things such as maintenance and snow removal, are largely the responsibility of private property owners. They are subject to all manner of laws that govern what kinds of activities can take place on them, laws that change not just from city to city, but sometimes from neighborhood to neighborhood, block to block, and address to address. They are also an important part of the transportation network and a key component in the effort to keep pedestrians safe, although certainly not a panacea, even in rural areas.

Michael Pollack, the author of an excellent new book, Sidewalk Nation: The Life and Law of America’s Most Overlooked Resource, thinks that sidewalks need a whole lot more consideration in legal and governing circles, and even goes so far as to advocate for the creation of a Department of Sidewalks that can cut through the rather opaque rules that govern these narrow strips of concrete. (Or other materials, given that many sidwalks are often governed by historic preservation laws.)

***For an extended, ad-free version of this episode featuring a bonus conversation about sidewalk delivery robots, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.***

SHOW NOTES:

Buy Sidewalk Nation: The Life and Law of America’s Most Overlooked Resourc and support independent booksellers at our official Bookshop.org page.

Order our book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, out now from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Save 20% on everything in our official merch store with code HOTBIKESUMMER.

Buy a certified, pre-owned e-bike from Upway or sell your own bike! Visit Upway.co to get rolling.

Thanks also to Cleverhood. Listen to this episode for the latest discount code and get 15% off the best rain gear for walking and cycling.

TheWarOnCars.org

Pondless live at the Mercury Lounge in New York City. Photo by Peyton Wallace

***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, plus ad-free versions of regular episodes, merch discounts, presale tickets to live shows, and more, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.***

The musical artist known as Pondless, who as a civilian goes by the name of Aaron Oliver, writes and performs pop songs about urban planning. If that sounds kind of out there, well, so is he, in the best way possible. We talked with him about why this country is divided into Houstons and New York Cities, why Boston does not exist, and how he came to write a love song to Robert Moses.

Pondless is @itspondless on Instagram and TikTok. 

Our bestselling new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, published by Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House, is available wherever books are sold.

www.thewaroncars.org

We’ve talked about “motonormativity” on the show before, typically in the context of the behavior we excuse when people are behind the wheel or how we think ao but parking and car dominance in public space. But what if the way we think about criminal consequences for drivers who harm pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers and their passengers is another form of that phenomenon? Does a focus on punishment for “reckless” or “dangerous” drivers let everyone else off the hook and never force them to look at the larger harms of a transportation system based around personal car ownership? Those are the questions asked by Ian Loader, a professor of criminology at the University of Oxford, who argues that the law’s focus on “motonormative punishment” is just another way of masking the larger problems caused by a car-dominant society. In a new study, Professor Loader proposes a vastly different way of thinking about criminal punishment organized around five harm reduction principles.

SHOW NOTES:

Read Professor Ian Loader’s study, “Beyond Motonormative Punishment: On Road Safety as Environmental Regulation.”

Curious about motonormativity? Listen to our episode with Dr. Ian Walker, who coined the term.

Learn more about the concept in our episode with Dr. Tara Goddard and our episode with Marco te Brömmelstroet.

Order our book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, out now from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Buy a certified, pre-owned e-bike from Upway. Listen to the episode for the latest discount code and save $100 off any purchase of $800 or more with code TWOC100. Visit Upway.co to get rolling.

Thanks also to Cleverhood. Listen to this episode for the latest discount code and get 15% off the best rain gear for walking and cycling.

TheWarOnCars.org

What does it take to make a street safer for everyone? In the US, it typically requires a combination of tragedy, grassroots organizing, and political leadership. Even when these ingredients come together, success is never guaranteed, as so many projects become battles about more than just bike lanes. Changing Lanes, a new documentary from director Ben Wolf, covers the fight to make McGuinness Boulevard in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, safer following the tragic death of a beloved teacher at the hands of a hit-and-run driver. Featuring interviews with such notable figures as Janette Sadik-Khan and former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, Changing Lanes moves beyond bike lanes to tell a story that’s very much made for this political and cultural moment. Wolf joins us along with advocates Bronwyn Breitner and Kevin LaCherra, as well as New York State Assemblymember Emily Gallagher, to talk about how they fought to make McGuinness safe and the broader lessons they learned along the way.

***Join The War on Cars on Patreon and listen to ad-free versions of regular episodes, Patreon-only bonus content,  invitations to live events, merch discounts and free stickers!***

SHOW NOTES:

Stream Changing Lanes on Amazon or Kanopy.

Watch the film’s trailer.

Learn more about the film and request a screening at ChangingLanesDoc.com.

Read more about the Make McGuinness Safe campaign and learn about where the project stands today.

Catch up on the corruption that led to a powerful family’s downfall and the indictment of a top aide to Mayor Eric Adams, via Streetsblog.

Order our book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, out now from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Buy a certified, pre-owned e-bike from Upway and save $100 off any purchase of $800 or more with code TWOC100. Visit Upway.co to get rolling.

Thanks also to Cleverhood. Listen to this episode for the latest discount code and get 15% off the best rain gear for walking and cycling.

TheWarOnCars.org

The Duffys on the road

This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, plus ad-free versions of regular episodes, merch discounts, presale tickets to live shows, and more, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.

See the USA in your… Toyota?

That’s what US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and his family have done with their reality-style online series, The Great American Road Trip. The way Secretary Duffy explains it, the show is a celebration of the country’s 250th birthday. Duffy has told interviewers that “To love America is to see America,” so he’s packed up the family SUV and hit the road.

This being the Trump administration, the trip isn’t just an exercise in patriotism but a giant conflict of interest packaged as a reality TV show. That’s hardly surprising given Duffy’s history with reality TV—Sean Duffy met his wife Rachel Campos-Duffy while shooting MTV’s Road Rules in the late 1990s—but it is concerning given that the series is sponsored by nearly a dozen companies that have business before USDOT.

Reporter Henry Burke—a senior researcher at the Revolving Door Project—breaks down the many questionable and outright shady details behind Sean Duffy’s trip across the country, from the opaque non-profit organizing it to the many transportation-related companies footing the bill.

Our bestselling new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, published by Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House, is available wherever books are sold.

www.thewaroncars.org

Antonio Reynoso

Claire Valdez

Julie Won

Join The War on Cars on Patreon and listen to exclusive ad-free versions of regular episodes, Patreon-only bonus content, Discord access, invitations to live events, merch discounts and free stickers!

Interested in learning more about the NY-7 candidates? Links to their campaigns here:

Antonio Reynoso

Claire Valdez

Julie Won

Order our book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, out now from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Get the book and find us on tour at LifeAfterCars.com. 

Buy a certified, pre-owned e-bike from Upway and save $100 off any purchase of $800 or more with code TWOC100. Visit Upway.co to get rolling.

Thanks also to Cleverhood. Listen to this episode for the latest discount code and get 15% off the best rain gear for walking and cycling.

And check out the Lumos Ultra Smart bike helmet and the Firefly smart light system at RideLumos.com. Save 10% off your purchase with code TWOC10.

TheWarOnCars.org

Just as it is with road safety, so much of how Americans talk about health pushes the responsibility for eating right and exercising onto the individual, ignoring the many structural barriers that prevent people from making “good” choices. Through her newsletter, She’s a Beast, and her bestselling book A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting, Casey Johnston cuts through the noise, making connections across various disciplines to help people rethink their notions about health, exercise and body positivity. Casey joins The War on Cars to talk about how “at the scale of daily life, cars should be systematically discouraged, in order to even begin to contend with the deaths and health decline from a lack of physical activity.”

***Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive exclusive access to ad-free versions of regular episodes, Patreon-only bonus content, Discord access, invitations to live events, merch discounts and free stickers!***

Order our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, out now from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Find out the latest about our book tour at LifeAfterCars.com.

LINKS:

Buy Casey Johnston’s books, A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting and Liftoff: Couch to Barbell, as well as books by all of our podcast guests at our official page on Bookshop.org

Subscribe to Casey Johnston’s newsletter, She’s a Beast, and read her post on “the plot to strangle the American of life, liberty, and happiness.”

Thanks to Cleverhood for sponsoring The War on Cars. Listen for the latest discount code and get the best rain gear for walking and cycling at 15% off.

Buy a certified, pre-owned e-bike from Upway and save $100 off any purchase of $800 or more with code TWOC100. Visit Upway.co to get rolling.

Check out the Lumos Ultra Smart bike helmet and the Firefly smart light system at RideLumos.com

www.thewaroncars.org

Streets can be more than places to move and store cars—they can be  places for children to grow and thrive. Alice Ferguson and Tim Gill are the UK-based authors of a new paper called “Streets for Play, Streets for Freedom: How a ‘child lens’ would transform transport policy.” Each of them has decades of experience in envisioning a world where children can use streets safely and happily. Together they are calling for a “radical, child-centric approach to transport policy and planning.”

Join The War on Cars on Patreon and listen to exclusive ad-free versions of regular episodes, Patreon-only bonus content, Discord access, invitations to live events, merch discounts and free stickers!

Listen to our interview with Tim Gill from last fall.

Read Tim’s book, Urban Playground.

Learn more about the Playing Out movement.

Order our book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, out now from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Get the book and find us on tour at LifeAfterCars.com. 

Thanks to Upway for sponsoring this episode. Use this link to sell your bike. You can also save $100 off any order of $800 or more with the code TWOC100.

Thanks also to Cleverhood. Listen to this episode for the latest discount code and get 15% off the best rain gear for walking and cycling.

TheWarOnCars.org

Dr. Rex Tai

EPISODE 170: A Doctor’s View of Traffic Violence

We talk with a guest who knows firsthand just how destructive cars can be. Dr. Rex Tai is a physician who works in long-term care. Many of his patients are the victims of traffic violence. His experience providing care for these people has been part of his growing awareness of how our country’s car-dependence creates and exacerbates inequality and division in our society and even in our global politics. We talk about all that, the effects of catastrophic injury for individuals and families, and how the public health crisis of traffic violence is just one aspect of a system that limits our mobility in so many ways, as well as dividing us from each other.

If you’d like to check out some of the organizations Dr. Tai mentions in the episode, here they are:

Los Deliveristas Unidos

WE ACT for Environmental Justice

NYC-DSA Ecosocialists

Join The War on Cars on Patreon and listen to exclusive ad-free versions of regular episodes, Patreon-only bonus content, Discord access, invitations to live events, merch discounts and free stickers!

Order our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, out now from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Find us on tour and get tickets at LifeAfterCars.com. 

Thanks to Upway for sponsoring this episode. Use this link and save $100 off any order of $800 or more with the code TWOC100.

Thanks also to Cleverhood. Listen to this episode for the latest discount code and get 15% off the best rain gear for walking and cycling.

TheWarOnCars.org