Changing Lanes
The War on Cars
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...
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PREVIEW: Sean Duffy's Great American Road Grift
The War on Cars
This is a preview of a . 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, . 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...
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Taking the Transportation Fight to Congress from NY-7
The War on Cars
Antonio Reynoso, Claire Valdez, and Julie Won are all running in the June 23 Democratic primary for New York's 7th congressional district. That’s the seat that opened up when veteran Democratic politician Nydia Velazquez announced she was retiring. It’s a traditionally progressive district, covering neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens. This isn’t just about New York, though. Federal funding is incredibly important to local transportation, and that money is in danger. But a new generation of candidates across the country is prioritizing the issues that matter to us at The War on Cars....
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A Physical Education with Casey Johnston
The War on Cars
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...
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Streets for Play, Streets for Freedom
The War on Cars
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 “.” 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.” *** 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...
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A Doctor's View of Traffic Violence
The War on Cars
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...
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PREVIEW: Let's Get Political
The War on Cars
This is a preview of a . 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, . For a long time, safe streets and transit advocacy organizations have had to play a careful game. While non-profit organizations can advocate for policies and infrastructure changes that protect pedestrians and cyclists and make transit more efficient and accessible, they can’t endorse candidates for office or otherwise throw their weight around when another election rolls around. Thankfully, that's...
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Tony Kushner on The Pushcart War
The War on Cars
—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...
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America's Hidden Desire to Live Car-Free
The War on Cars
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...
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PREVIEW: What Snow Reveals About Cities (Plus More From Our Book Tour)
The War on Cars
***This is a preview of a . 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, .*** 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, we discuss how 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. It’s a lot! (And it’s not just sneckdowns.) Order our new book, . And catch us on...
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