Feds pulled back grant money destined to make Mattapan Square in Boston a better place for human beings/ Picture by 4300streetcar

In this episode, we talk about the Trump Administration’s full-on financial assault on all the modes of transportation we hold dear here at The War on Cars. Biking, walking, public transit—basically, anything deemed “hostile to cars” or that has something to do with sustainability and equity is  under attack. Ted Mann, a reporter at Bloomberg News who has been covering the story, joins us to explain what is going on with federal transportation funding for active transportation projects and more.

You can find more of Ted’s work here or follow him on Bluesky.

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

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!

***Our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves From the Tyranny of the Automobile, will be published on October 21, 2025 by Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Pre-order now.***

Find us on tour in San Francisco, Washington DC, Seattle, Vancouver, Portland, San Diego, Los Angeles and more. New dates are being added all the time.

The War on Cars is produced with the generous support of the Helen & William Mazer Foundation.

This episode was sponsored by Cleverhood and Upway. Listen for the latest discount codes.

www.lifeaftercars.com

Tim Gill says that by seeing cities through the eyes of children, we can make them better for all of us

Tim Gill is a London-based independent scholar, writer and consultant on childhood, and a global advocate for children’s play and mobility. He is the author of Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Urban Planning and Design Can Save Cities and No Fear: Growing Up in a Risk Averse Society. We talked with Tim on a bench in City Hall Park on a weekday morning, so you can hear the sounds of a city that is waking up and going to work and school in the background. It was an appropriate setting for a chat about how by making cities better for children, we make them better for everyone.

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

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!

***Our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, will be published on October 21, 2025 by Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Pre-order now.***

Purchase tickets for our Life After Cars publication party and live show at The Bell House in Brooklyn on October 28th. And find don’t miss our shows in San Francisco, Vancouver, Washington, DC, and more.

The War on Cars is produced with the generous support of the Helen & William Mazer Foundation.

This episode was sponsored by Cleverhood and Upway. Listen for the latest discount codes.

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

Brad Lander has been a fixture in New York’s progressive political scene for nearly two decades now, and has earned a reputation as a strong advocate for bike lanes, bike share, driver accountability, and congestion pricing. This year, though, he’s become known in a new way. As a candidate in a crowded Democratic mayoral primary, Brad cross-endorsed Zohran Mamdani, who eventually won the race with a margin that shocked the Democratic establishment. And in June, mere days before the primary ended, Brad was escorting a man named out of an immigration hearing when he was arrested by federal agents. Brad joins us to explain how his defense of the Prospect Park West bike lane as a then-new member of the New York City Council became a formative experience in his political career and why the courage and coalition building it takes to stand up for safe streets are also the same tools it takes to fight fascism.

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

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!

***Our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, will be published on October 21, 2025 by Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Pre-order now.***

Purchase tickets for our Life After Cars publication party and live show at The Bell House in Brooklyn on October 28th. And find don’t miss our shows in San Francisco, Vancouver, Washington, DC, and more.

The War on Cars is produced with the generous support of the Helen & William Mazer Foundation.

This episode was sponsored by Cleverhood and Upway. Listen for the latest discount codes.

David Byrne has a hot take on bike etiquette

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 this bonus episode, Doug and I discuss a couple of recent studies that look at just how destructive cars are to the social fabric of our communities, how they decrease life satisfaction, and how walkable neighborhoods with public gathering places are an important resources for combating the loneliness epidemic.

As we often say, we have custom-built our communities for cars, in the name of convenience. That obviously sucks for those of us who don’t want to drive. But the crazy thing is, as we have often pointed out, that it also sucks for people who do think that driving it’s a terrific way to get around.

In the full bonus, we also give you our take on David Byrne’s Subway Takes appearance—and his take about urban bike etiquette!

Become a Patreon supporter of the podcast for access to the entire episode.

Pre-order our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, coming in October from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. And catch us on tour this fall and beyond. Tickets for live shows are on sale now!

Should the bus be free? That’s the question everyone following the New York City mayoral race is asking, with Democratic primary winner Zohran Mamdani promising to focus on fast, free buses if he’s elected. Eliminating bus fares is a big idea, but is it a good one? Like a lot of things in politics, there’s no simple answer. That’s why we welcomed Yonah Freemark — a researcher in cities, land use, and transportation at the Urban Institute — to the podcast to walk us through the pros and cons of making the bus free for everyone. Whatever you think about it, the good news is that everyone is talking about bus riders. That’s a win in our book.

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

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!

***Our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, will be published on October 21, 2025 by Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Pre-order now.***

Purchase tickets for our Life After Cars publication party and live show at The Bell House in Brooklyn on October 28th. And find us in other cities for our book tour including San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, and more.

The War on Cars is produced with the generous support of the Helen & William Mazer Foundation.

This episode was sponsored by Cleverhood and Upway. Listen for the latest discount codes.

Check out Mamala Food by Dani Finkel. (She designed our logo!)

SHOW NOTES

Learn more about Yonah Freemark and his work at the Urban Institute.

Watch Zohran Mamdani on The Breakfast Club. 

Charlie Komanoff: Free buses would mean faster buses and more riders. (Streetsblog)

Andrew Cuomo has a less ambitious free bus plan. (Gothamist)

Boston has free buses on three routes. (Boston.gov)

New York’s free bus pilot. (MTA.info)

This episode was recorded at the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio.

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.

While we were researching and writing Life After Cars last year, we read and pulled information from dozens upon dozens of books. There were also a handful of books that caught our attention but that, try as we might, didn’t quite warrant inclusion in our own. In this Patreon exclusive, we talk about two of these books: “Road Safety: How to Reduce Accidents” by T.S. Skillman (1965) and an anthology called “He Rides Beside You” (1957). For very different reasons, both are fascinating examples of the mindset of people who knew a life before cars and, more than halfway into the 20th century, were grappling with the reality of life during cars.

Become a Patreon supporter of the podcast for access to the entire episode.

Pre-order our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, coming in October from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. And catch us on tour this fall and beyond. Tickets for live shows are on sale now!

One of the highlights of Velo-city is the group rides, like this one in the historic Gdańsk shipyard, birthplace of the Solidarity movement that helped bring down the Communist regime in Poland.

At this year’s Velo-city conference in Gdańsk, the theme was “Energizing Solidarity” in honor of the city’s history as the cradle of the Solidarity labor movement that helped bring down Communism in Poland. Velo-city is an incredibly good-mood event put on each year by the European Cyclists’ Federation, where people come from all over the world to share best practices in urban cycling, and to connect with their fellow advocates, elected officials, and other members of the wider cycling community.  Sarah talked with advocates, government officials, and researchers how bicycles build solidarity as people around the world  fight for democracy and our planet’s health.

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

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!

***Our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, will be published on October 21, 2025 by Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Pre-order now.***

Purchase tickets for our Life After Cars publication party and live show at The Bell House in Brooklyn on October 28th. The Patreon presale for our November 5th show at Town Hall in Seattle with City Nerd begins on Wednesday, July 16th. More shows will be announced soon.

The War on Cars is produced with the generous support of the Helen & William Mazer Foundation.

This episode was sponsored by Cleverhood and Xtracycle.

SHOW NOTES

Check out all the great work that the European Cyclists’ Federation does.Velo-city 2026 will be in Rimini, Italy.

Thanks to Anthony Lau of Cyclehoop for the audio from the Cave Rave.

Learn more about the Shawlands Bike Bus in Glasgow.

Check out Bike Ottawa.

E-Bike City Zurich imagines a city that deprioritizes cars.

Find out about the COP Bike Ride for climate awareness.

Read about Dr. Ian Walker’s motonormativity research, along with fun facts about his other life as an ultradistance athlete.

Learn more about Melissa and Chris Bruntlett.

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, pre-sale tickets to live shows and more, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.

Are cyclists too mean online? To read some of the headlines about a recent study, you’d think the answer was yes. “Forceful bike campaigners can undermine UK cycle lane planning, report finds,” blared the headline in The Guardian. The subhead said that “toxic” online debates can make officials and other people in government reluctant to pursue cycling-related transportation projects. Adding one and one together, any reader would likely assume that it’s those “forceful bike campaigners” who are mostly responsible for the “toxic” online debates. This story spread online and confirmed a lot of people’s priors. Those darn cyclists! If only they’d behave they’d deserve safer streets!

Not so fast. The actual study was a bit more complicated than the headlines and social media posts might have led people to believe. It also offers good lessons for effective engagement to get the change we want at the scale we need, no matter the issue.

Become a Patreon supporter of the podcast for access to the entire episode.

Pre-order our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, coming in October from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. And catch us on tour this fall and beyond, including at our book publication party and live show at The Bell House in Brooklyn.

Why have some cities become places where it’s easy to hop on a bike for daily transportation needs while others have languished or even been left behind? Is there some sort of magical combination of forces that separate the best cycling cities from basically everywhere else?

Those are the questions asked by Cycling Cities: The Global Experience, a research project headed by Dr. Ruth Oldenziel, a Professor in The History of Technology at Eindhoven University of Technology. Nthoki Dorcas Nyamai, an Urban Development Researcher at International Planning Studies, TU Dortmund University, also joins us to talk about her research into African cities, local advocacy and cycling culture in places like Nairobi, and more. Looking far beyond the handful of Northern European cities that consume so much attention in the cycling world, the Cycling Cities project challenges us to take a bigger view of the factors that determine whether or not cities prioritize people over cars and to think beyond traffic counts or even two wheels. Ruth and Dorcas’s research may surprise you.

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!

***Our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, will be published on October 21, 2025 by Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Pre-order now.***

Tickets for our Life After Cars publication party and live show at The Bell House in Brooklyn on October 28th are now available to the general public. They’re going fast, so get yours now.

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

This episode was also supported by Cleverhood. Listen to the episode for the latest discount on the best and most stylish rain gear for walking and cycling.

Learn more about how an electric cargo bike can change your life and save $500 off a new bike with code WARONCARS500 at Xtracycle.

SHOW NOTES

Read about the Cycling Cities project and learn more about Ruth Oldenziel and Nthoki Dorcas Nyamai

Here’s the Guardian story about Amsterdam becoming an cycling city almost “by chance” that we mention in the episode.

thewaroncars.org / lifeaftercars.com