Happy New Year! We’re kicking off 2024 by bringing you our conversation with David Zipper, one of the hardest-working analysts on the transportation scene today. You may be familiar with David from his writing at Bloomberg CityLab, Slate and Fast Company, where he relentlessly covers road safety, climate change, and the future of micromobility.

We talked with David about the excesses of the auto industry, our road fatality crisis, the absurd way speed limits are determined on American streets, and whether we might ever be able to swap out our bloated SUVs for electric golf carts. Or if that’s too much to ask, will cities at least start charging people more for driving massive glacier melters?

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

LINKS:

You can find out all about David Zipper’s work, along with links to his writing, at his website.

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Last month the three hosts told their origin stories, or how they first became aware of the problems associated with cars and automobile dependency. Our stories included everything from lessons learned during early driving lessons to our individual experiences living in car-dependent places. The response to that episode was so great that we put out the call to our Patreon supporters to tell us their origin stories. We heard from people from all over the world — including a few friends and former guests of the podcast — who all wanted to share how they were radicalized into The War on Cars.

***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.***

Since 1964, the Hess Corporation has released a toy truck for the holiday season, an annual tradition that’s highly anticipated by children and collectors alike. Models have included gas tankers, fire trucks, motorcycles, RVs, race cars, and even a Space Shuttle, almost all in the fossil fuel company’s iconic green-and-white color scheme.  But this year, perhaps reflecting the times, the Hess Corporation has released a Police Truck and Cruiser, “a specialized law enforcement response team that will inspire and unleash the inner hero in everyone.” We’re not sure what kind of trouble is brewing in Santa’s workshop, but the truck looks like what would arrive in response to a terrorist attack. Meanwhile, the cruiser, the smaller truck-within-the-truck, is an “armored-response vehicle” that gives off big Cybertruck vibes… if the Cybertruck included a battering ram and could actually work off-road.

The hosts discuss this year’s Hess Truck and what it says about the state of the world. Plus, since we’re not the target audience for this toy or its marketing, we hear a kid’s take on what makes the Hess truck fun and cool.

***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.***

Hess Truck 2023 Ad. (YouTube)

Learn more about the Hess Truck. (Hess)

The Hess Truck’s Back And It’s Worse Than Ever. “They turned by sweet boy into a tool of state violence.” (Steve Da Silva, Jalopnik.)

In his new book, Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping The Future of Our Planet, independent conservation journalist Ben Goldfarb writes about how roads and cars are wreaking havoc on nature across the globe. He reports back about the people trying to save everything from butterflies to deer to wallabies to salamanders from the destructive power of motordom. Plus, he helps us analyze a couple of egregious ads that show how humans use roads to assert our dominion over the natural world…to our own eventual detriment.

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive access to ad-free versions of all our episodes, exclusive bonus content and stickers.

This episode is produced with support from Cleverhood. Listen to the episode for the latest Cleverhood discount code.

LINKS:

You can learn more about Ben Goldfarb’s work at his website.

Pick up Ben’s Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping The Future of Our Planet at our official Bookshop.org page.

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British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has declared it’s time to end what he calls “the war on motorists.” First, the Conservative Party leader announced he was delaying the UK’s commitment to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars. He followed that with what he called his “plan for motorists,” which would severely restrict local efforts to implement low-traffic neighborhoods, 20 mph speed limits, bus-only lanes, and other policies intended to benefit people walking, cycling, and taking transit. Finally, he scrapped a major portion of HS2, a high-speed rail line linking some of the UK’s biggest cities. 

So… what the hell is happening in the UK? With similar setbacks in Berlin, Madrid, New York and elsewhere, is this part of a broader global backsliding? Are we losing the The War on Cars or is the prime minister just grasping at culture-war straws? The Guardian’s Peter Walker returns to the podcast to help us figure it all out.

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

***Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive access to ad-free versions of all our episodes, exclusive bonus content and stickers.***

This episode is produced with support from Cleverhood. Listen to the episode for the latest Cleverhood discount code.

LINKS:

“Sunak ‘backs drivers,’ announces scaling back of HS2, and delays the UK’s ban on gas-powered vehicles by five years. (Peter Walker & colleagues, The Guardian)

Rishi Sunak says he’s “slamming the brakes on the war on motorists.” (The Sun)

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In this bonus episode just for Patreon supporters of The War on Cars, we reveal how Aaron, Doug and Sarah get mobilized into the war on cars. What made them this way?

We dive deep into our own pasts and reveal how our personal experiences with cars drove us to activism, research, writing…and ultimately, The War on Cars podcast as you know it today. You’ll learn how Doug dealt with a soul-crushing commute in Atlanta and how Sarah drove recklessly on the California coast. You’ll also hear the words of wisdom Aaron’s father imparted during their first driving lesson.

With cameo appearances from the Chevy Nova (pictured above in malaise beige) and the Chrysler LeBaron.

***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.***

Since he was selected mayor in 2021, John Bauters has gained an international reputation for his work to transform transportation and housing in the tiny city of Emeryville, which is wedged between Oakland and Berkeley on the shores of San Francisco Bay. Emeryville, population 13,000, is only one square mile in area. But it’s home to some big employers, including Pixar, and several big box stores. It also has I-80 blasting through it, and it is a major hub for Amtrak, regional rail, and freight rail. It’s a challenging environment in which to create a green city with a great active transportation network. But that’s exactly what Bauters has been working toward for his whole term. We visited with him, rode some of the great bike and park network that Emeryville has been building, and talked about the kind of political will that’s necessary to make real change.

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

***Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive access to ad-free versions of all our episodes, exclusive bonus content and stickers.***

This episode is produced with support from Cleverhood. Listen to the episode for the latest Cleverhood discount code. Read More

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This year, 2023, marks the hundredth anniversary of the invention of leaded gasoline. Of all the many harms that the automobile has imposed on the environment and humanity over the last century, the effects of leaded gasoline have to be pretty close to the top of the list.

Science and industry were well aware of the dangers of lead in the 1920s. But adding small amounts of tetraethyl lead to motor fuel made internal combustion engines work better, and that made it possible to turn the automobile into a viable mass market product. As a result, pretty much every American born between 1960 and 1980 was, to some extent, poisoned by lead.

Back in March, bestselling author Steven Johnson wrote a somewhat mind-blowing essay in the New York Times Magazine titled, “The Man Who Broke the World.” In it, Steven told the story of Thomas Midgley, Jr., the chemical engineer who not only invented leaded gasoline — he also invented the chemical compound that made modern refrigeration possible. As with lead (branded as Ethyl to sound innocuous), Midgley’s miraculous chlorofluorocarbons unleashed an almost unbelievably destructive set of unintended consequences. Four decades after their invention, scientists discovered that CFCs were burning holes in the ozone layer of Earth’s upper atmosphere and quite literally threatening human life on Planet Earth.

We’ve been wanting to do an episode on leaded gasoline for a while now. This conversation with Steven accomplishes that and goes so much further, weaving together so many different threads. It was a lot of fun and we hope you enjoy it.

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

***Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive access to ad-free versions of all our episodes, exclusive bonus content and stickers.***

This episode is produced with support from Cleverhood. Listen to the episode for the latest Cleverhood discount code.

LINKS:

“The Man Who Broke the World” by Steven Johnson for the New York Times Magazine, March 15, 2023.

Find more of Steven Johnson’s work on his website.

Subscribe to Steven’s newsletter, Adjacent Possible.

Find all thirteen of Steven’s books here. War on Cars fans will enjoy The Ghost Map — it’s a page-turner of a mystery/thriller about urban planning and epidemiology. You can buy Steven’s books at our Bookshop.org store.

Interested in digging deeper into the history of leaded gasoline? Check out Toxic Truth by Lydia Denworth.

Buy official War on Cars merch at our store.

Find us on Mastodon, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and whatever godforsaken new social media platform pops up next.

Follow and review us on Apple Podcasts.

TheWarOnCars.org

Check out this episode!

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.

***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.***