In this bonus episode just for Patreon supporters of The War on Cars, we do a quick news roundup before getting to the thing that matters most: WINNING.
Last month we reached out to our liteners and asked them to send us their wins, from policy and infrastructure victories to cultural changes they helped usher in, even at just the individual level. Let’s face it: it’s a tough world out there so celebrating victories big and small is really important. Thanks to all of you, we are making progress in The War on Cars one parking space at a time.
After 16 years of slogging its way through municipal, state and federal government and every imaginable form of public process, congestion pricing is finally on its way to New York City. If all goes as planned, then anyone who wants to cram a car or truck into Lower Manhattan south of 60th Street is going to have to pay somewhere between $9 and $23 per day starting next spring. And all of that money will go toward supporting and improving New York’s transit system. There are still lots of details to iron out and we should never underestimate New York’s ability to blow it when it comes to transportation policy. But Diana Lind of the Penn Institute for Urban Research thinks congestion pricing is a big deal that will fundamentally reshape the relationship between the car and the city, not just in New York but all across North America. “The next 20 years,” Lind writes, “will be the beginning of the end of the private car in cities.”
You can find the full transcript of this episode here.
While working on Episode 110,Back to School with the Bike Bus, we spoke with Sam Balto, a phys ed teacher in Portland, Oregon, who goes by@CoachBalto and who’s become one of the most visible advocates in the global movement for active transportation for kids.
We used some of his comments in that episode, but our conversation was so juicy we knew we wanted to share it in full.
Sam does a great job of explaining why bike buses are so much fun and so good for kids, and why you might find yourself tearing up when you watch his videos: “We want our children to thrive. And the bike bus movement is sort of the first story of children thriving since the pandemic.”
If you’ve never heard of a bike bus—or a bicibús, as it’s known in the Catalonian capital of Barcelona—it’s a beautifully simple idea. Kids and parents ride their bikes to school along a pre-planned route, picking up classmates along the way, just the way a school bus would. Except because it’s bikes, it’s way, way more fun. Sarah and Doug rode along with bike buses in Barcelona and suburban Montclair, New Jersey, to see how it works, and we talked with organizer Sam Balto in Portland, Oregon, to find out why kids who ride with bike buses get to school feeling happy and energized.
You can find the full transcript of this episode here.
In her new book, Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities, Veronica O. Davis — the Director of Transportation and Drainage Operations for the city of Houston, Texas — takes a hard look at the ways in which planning a world for cars has harmed communities and how that affects anyone working to change things today. How do you repair a system that continues to divide communities? In a world where “equity” can sometimes just be a buzzword, what does equity truly look like if we can achieve it?
Davis tells her own “transportation story,” asks readers to think about their own, and urges transportation professionals to consider past injustices and do the hard work that results in more than an idea and a catchphrase. She also has a lot of advice for how to approach community engagement and the different types of “stakeholders” who can make or break a street improvement project.
The rising problem of mopeds and motorcycles in New York City bike lanes is impossible to ignore but the solutions are anything but simple.
Recently, journalist and friend of the podcast Aaron Gordon wrote an essay for his newsletter titled “Biking in New York City Has Gotten Worse,” in which he laments the change that’s happened in recent years of larger and faster motorized vehicles using the city’s bike lanes. We’re not talking pedal-assist e-bikes and cargo bikes or even the Arrow e-bikes that have long been preferred by New York’s delivery workers. We’re talking full-on mopeds and motorcycles—electric and gas-powered alike—many of which are unlicensed and, even if they did have the proper registration, generally do not belong in bike lanes.
In this coversation, we talk about how and why this problem has grown, largely due to the major food-delivery app companies which wash their hands of any responsibility for providing their workers, all of whom are categorized not as employees but as contractors, with fair wages, benefits, and even street-legal vehicles.
Can government force the app companies to step up? What should people who advocate for safe streets and bike infrastructure do? It’s complicated.
***This is a bonus episode that was previously only available to Patreon supporters of The War on Cars. If you want to hear more bonus episodes like this, please enlist today! We’ll taking a very short summer break and will be back with a new episode next week.***
Have you ever wondered what the reporters who cover the auto industry think about oversized SUVs and pickups and whether the fever for these gas-guzzling, space-hogging, planet-heating and people-killing monstrosities will ever break? Bob Sorokanich has some opinions.
Bob Sorokanich was the Editor-In-Chief of Jalopnik the news site about cars, the auto industry and transportation in general. He was also the longstanding Deputy Editor of Road & Track, one of the most historic and important auto magazines in the U.S., if not the world.
In this expansive conversation, Bob talks about the changing face of automotive journalism and what it’s like being a city resident, cyclist and public transit rider who also loves cars. We heard about what he drives, his thoughts on what it will take to win the war on cars, and why even the most died-in-the-wool car enthusiasts hate the kind of driving they typically experience today.
You can find the full transcript of this episode here.
This special episode of The War on Cars was recorded live before a sold-out audience at Caveat on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and was styled after a community board meeting… except instead of people yelling at each other about parking spaces, bike lanes and neighborhood character, a fantastic time was had by all.
In his groundbreaking book, Traffication: How Cars Destroy Nature and What We Can Do About It, scientist and researcher Paul Donald synthesizes dozens of studies to help us understand what cars and roads do to living things. Paul makes the case that cars ruin more than cities—they also ruin the countryside by fragmenting habitat and creating a neverending barrage of threats and stressors for animals of all kinds. The danger posed by the car to nature, he suggests, is existential.
We talked with Paul Donald about his book, why he coined the term “traffication” and what he thinks we can do about it.
You can find the full transcript of this episode here.
This is a special presentation of the first episode of Freeway Exit, a six-part series produced by award-winning reporter Andrew Bowen of KPBS Public Media in San Diego, California. Freeway Exit reveals the mostly forgotten history of how Southern California’s urban freeway network was built. It tells the story of the citizens and public servants who fought these projects and how decades after that network was finished, some communities are still working to heal the wounds that freeways left behind. While Freeway Exit focuses specifically on the urban highways of Southern California, the story that Andrew tells is universal: Freeways aren’t free. We pay for them in all kinds of ways — with our tax dollars, our time, our environment and our health. In the 20th century we planned, designed, and built highways through the middle of our cities. In the 21st century we can and must plan, design, and build something else better in their place.
Find all six episodes of Freeway Exit right here or wherever you get your podcasts.
