The Pushcart War—written by Jean Merrill and illustrated by Ronni Solbert and first published in 1964—is a charming and provocative children’s novel that tells the story of a band of pushcart vendors who fight against the organized forces of big trucks on the congested, contested streets of New York City.

For Tony Kushner, the Pulitzer-prize-winning playwright, screenwriter, and author, reading the book as a child was a formative experience. “It made opposition, even nonviolent civil disobedience, seem fun and right and necessary and heroic, and something even someone as powerless as a kid can and should undertake,” he has said. March 2026 marks the 50th anniversary of the date on which the events described in the book are said to have begun. So we invited Kushner on to talk about The Pushcart War and what it can tell us about how to defend human beauty and agency against the brutal forces of technocratic capitalism. 

You can buy a copy of The Pushcart War on our Bookshop page of recommended reading for kids.

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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.

The War on Cars is produced with support from the Helen and William Mazer Foundation.

TheWarOnCars.org

What is the demand for car-free developments like Culdesac, in Tempe, Arizona?

Do people really like our all-enveloping autocentric system quite as much as everyone keeps saying they do? What kind of communities would they live in if given the choice? The answers, as a new study shows, are not exactly what so many of us have been told. Nearly one in five American car owners is “strongly interested” in living car-free, and another 40 percent are open to the idea. We talked about the implications of that study with its authors, Nicole Corcoran, Deborah Salon, and Hue-Tam Jamme, researchers at the Arizona State University School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning in Tempe. 

Check out their research.

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.

The War on Cars is produced with support from the Helen and William Mazer Foundation.

TheWarOnCars.org

Soooo quiet….

***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.***

In our latest Patreon bonus episode, we get into what we saw in the wildly different cities we hit on our last round of book tour (Miami! Pittsburgh! Toronto! Phoenix!). Then, all the snow we have gotten this year has revealed some truths about what cars do to our cities and what we can learn from it. We discuss. It’s a lot! (And it’s not just sneckdowns.)

Order our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile. And catch us on tour in 2026: Tickets for live shows are on sale now!

www.thewaroncars.org

Brent showed Doug and Sarah around downtown Vancouver last fall.

Brent Toderian has decades of experience in city planning, urban design, and transportation. He was chief planner for the city of Vancouver from 2006 to 2012, a time when the city hosted and was transformed by the Winter Olympics. As a consultant, Brent has advised and collaborated with folks from Auckland to Buenos Aires to Copenhagen to Reykjavik, and he often sparks conversation on social media, where he is one of the most prominent voices advocating for more human and humane urban design. We talked with him about how to make downtowns attractive and livable for families, why developers should value regulation, and that legendary urban Costco in Vancouver. Plus, Brent gives us the scoop on the new Urban Truth Collective and its mission to beat back the lies people tell about cities.

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!

Find out more about Brent Toderian and all his projects at his website, and follow him on Bluesky.

And check out the brand-new Urban Truth Collective, Brent’s collaboration with Tom Flood and Grant Ennis.

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 Cleverhood for sponsoring this episode. Listen to this episode for the latest discount code and get the best rain gear for walking and cycling.

The War on Cars is produced with support from the Helen and William Mazer Foundation.

www.thewaroncars.org

Bad Bunny won the Super Bowl

Super Bowl LX had everything, from ads for weight loss drugs and male grooming products to spots touting tax prep services and calming fears about our AI overlords. It also had one outstanding halftime performance from Bad Bunny. But what the game didn’t have was a whole lot of car ads. (Or a whole lot of touchdowns, but that’s a different story.) Why, after dominating the broadcast for decades, has the automobile industry gone cool on one of broadcasting’s biggest nights? And what did the few cars ads that did run say about the state of the nation and American culture at this particularly fraught moment in time? Ian Chillag—creator and host of the award-winning Radiotopia podcast “Everything is Alive,” the co-host of NPR’s “How to Do Everything,” and a senior producer of “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me” — joins us to break it all down.

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

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Watch all of the Super Bowl ads. (NY Times)

Listen to Ian Chillag’s podcasts How to Do Everything and Everything is Alive.

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 Cleverhood for sponsoring this episode. Listen to this episode for the latest discount code and get the best rain gear for walking and cycling.

The War on Cars is produced with support from the Helen and William Mazer Foundation.

www.thewaroncars.org

***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.***

When it comes to transforming cities and reclaiming space from the automobile, some of the best and boldest leaders are women. Why is that so? That’s the question explored by our guests, urban mobility experts Melissa and Chris Bruntlett, in their new book: Women Changing Cities: Global Stories of Urban Transformation. The Bruntletts discuss the qualities that have allowed these leaders—along with women planners, advocates, and policymakers—to reshape their cities to benefit people, not cars. When women lead, cities thrive.

Longtime listeners may remember Melissa and Chris from episode 77, released back in 2021. It’s always a treat to talk to the Bruntletts and this time was no exception, especially because it happened live on stage at the Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida. Thanks to Transit Alliance Miami for hosting this epic team-up.

Bruce Appleyard

This week, we talked with Dr. Bruce Appleyard, who has spent a lifetime thinking about what we mean when we talk about liveable streets—and why it is so important that we build our cities with human beings in mind, first and foremost. Bruce’s research makes an appearance in Life After Cars, and his father, Donald Appleyard, was a legend in this field for his work that led to the indispensable book Livable Streets, published in 1981. In 2020 Bruce published Livable Streets 2.0, which brings his father’s book up to date while preserving its core principles and teachings. We talked with him about how streets can foster (or erode) social ties in our communities, how car-centric infrastructure harms children’s ability to navigate, and how we can fulfill what his father called “the promise of our streets.”

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 Cleverhood for sponsoring this episode. Listen to this episode for the latest discount code and get the best rain gear for walking and cycling.

The War on Cars is produced with support from the Helen and William Mazer Foundation.

www.thewaroncars.org

Claiborne Avenue in 1968 and I-10 today

Signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, otherwise known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, ushered in an unprecedented era of roadbuilding in the United States, becoming the largest public works project in the country’s history. Designed to spread freedom and prosperity — and, as the name implies, provide for the national defense — these highways tore through urban neighborhoods, destroying once-thriving communities and displacing countless citizens, many of them people of color. In this special report, we examine just what inspired this massive project and the effects it had on two communities, one in New Orleans and one in Syracuse.

This episode was produced with the generous support of the Helen & William Mazer Foundation.

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 Cleverhood for sponsoring this episode. Listen to this episode for the latest discount code and get the best rain gear for walking and cycling.

www.thewaroncars.org

We had a great time talking with Jonathan and so many other Portlanders at the Bike Portland Happy Hour. Photo by Jana via Bike Portland

***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.***

We were out in Portland, Oregon, for our book tour in November, and spent a lot of great time hanging out with Jonathan Maus, the legendary founder of Bike Portland. We sat down with Jonathan in his backyard shed/studio and talked about how a great bike city can get even better, the importance of transit, and how media is an important part of the movement for more human cities.

Order our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile. And catch us on tour in 2026: Tickets for live shows are on sale now!

www.thewaroncars.org

We got a warm Texas welcome in Austin

We are back home in Brooklyn but we can’t stop talking about everything we saw out on the road on our Life After Cars book tour. Listen for our takes on the second leg of our trip, which took us from Providence to Austin to Houston to Denver to Boulder…and then ended with a surprise diversion to an unexpected destination. We’ve seen so much along the way—like just how destructive freeway expansions can be. But also how cities can reclaim automobile infrastructure for humans! Plus, a shout-out to all the people who took such good care of us along the way.

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

Our book tour continues! Find out where we’ll be next at lifeaftercars.com.

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.

Thanks to Cleverhood for sponsoring this episode. Listen to this episode for the latest discount code and get the best rain gear for walking and cycling.

www.thewaroncars.org