Does Constant Driving Really Make our Country Richer?
The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast
Release Date: 07/01/2025
How to Be a Better Transportation Advocate (Carter Lavin)
The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast
There's a big difference between knowing what is best of your city’s transportation system, and knowing how to fight the often fierce political battles you need to win in order to make it real. Fortunately, one author has written a manual to help transit advocates across America do exactly that, from picking campaigns out of the tangle of interlocking transportation challenges that ensnare our cities, to winning over the skeptical — and everything in between. On this episode of The Brake, we're joined by Carter Lavin’s to discuss his new book "If You Want to Win,...
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Is a 'Life After Cars' Really Possible? (Sarah Goodyear)
The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast
What will it take to wake more of the world up to the dangers of mass automobility — and could a book be help Americans imagine a future beyond car dominance? That's what Sarah Goodyear and her co-authors are hoping as they release their new book Along with Doug Gordon and Aaron Naperstek, with whom she co-founded the legendary "War on Cars" podcast, she's bringing the conversation about transportation reform to a new audience, and hoping to give even veteran advocates new tools to talk about why we need to radically rethink our streets. We sat down with Goodyear at the Vision...
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The Shocking Untold Story of America's Rail-Trail Movement (Peter Harnik)
The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast
Hey everyone, it’s Kea; welcome the brake. If you’ve ever taken a stroll on New York’s High Line or ridden along Missouri’s Katy Trail, you might assume that it was a no-brainer for communities across the U.S. to rip up the old abandoned train tracks that used to run there and build a sanctuary for people outside cars. In actuality, though, the story of the rails-to-trails movement is one of the most epic, controversial, and still ongoing tales in the history of American advocacy — and now, it's finally getting a film that's worthy of that epic narrative. On October...
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Our Streets Look Like War Zones — But What if They Were 'Sites of Peacebuilding'? (Ashton Rohmer)
The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast
Car culture has a higher body count than both world wars . So why don't we think of automobility in the same way we think about the bloody and destructive global conflicts that dominate the news — and what would it take to transform our streets into a tool to make our whole society more peaceful, rather than more violent? Today on the Brake, we sat down with PhD candidate Ashton Rohmer to talk about her fascinating that looks at our transportation culture through a "peace and conflict studies" lens — and why car domination is a kind of warfare unto itself, even if claims of a...
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The War on ... Walking and Biking? (Tepi McLaughlin)
The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast
Active transportation advocates constantly get accused of waging a "war on cars." But when you look around our communities, it sure looks more like we’re in the middle of a war on walking and biking — and the wrong side is winning. In today’s episode of The Brake, we sat down with Dr. Tepi McLaughlin, who co-authored of a provocative that argues it’s time to name the “enemies of physical activity” and dismantle policies they push, rather than just focusing on the additive benefits of building more sidewalks and bike lanes. And along the way, we talk about some of the hidden...
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Is U.S. Passenger Rail Having a Big Moment? (Jim Mathews)
The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast
Secretary Sean Duffy for America’s first high speed rail line. Congress surprisingly showing up for Amtrak in its annual budget. Elon Musk . A surprisingly strong showing for trains in the Senate's , and advocates who have even It seems like every time you turn on the news, there's an explosive new headline about passenger rail in America — but what's really driving them all? On this episode of the Brake, we sat down with the most plugged-in rail advocate we know, Jim Mathews of the National Rail Passengers Association, to break down some of the biggest rail stories of the day and give...
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What Will It Take To Give Victims and Advocates a Voice at USDOT? (Marianne Karth)
The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast
USDOT is about what it should propose for the next surface transportation reauthorization bill — and one advocate is hoping that legislation will finally give victims a voice at USDOT. Today on the Brake, we're talking to Marianne Karth of AnnaLeah and Mary for Truck Safety, who's pushing for the creation of a new, non-partisan "National Roadway Safety Advocate" position, which will give victims, survivors, and advocates against traffic violence a champion at the nation's highest transportaiton advocacy. Already the subject of , Karth calls the job the "missing piece" in our roadway...
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America's Kids Deserve More than Waymo Subscriptions
The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast
Autonomous vehicle giant Waymo is starting to with subscription packages for teens — including those too young to drive. But as America's kids gain high-tech motorized independence, what will they lose in exchange? Today on the Brake, host Kea Wilson is going solo for an informal chat about the debate over driverless cars as a youth mobility solution, how autonomous vehicles could even further isolate young people from their communities, and the dangers of relying on corporations for our basic human needs. And along the way, she touches on teen driving safety, the concept of...
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Does Constant Driving Really Make our Country Richer?
The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast
We’ve all heard the argument that the soul of America’s economy is based on how much we all love to drive. But does the data support the narrative that cars connect us to far-flung opportunities to make and spend more money — or has our country's car-powered productivity revolution actually stalled out? Today on The Brake, we're talking to Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute about his new paper on the and why so many economic indicators actually go down the more we collectively rely on automobiles — and many go up when we build a more multimodal...
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What Will It Take to Prepare Our Cities For the Impending Influx of Seniors? (Greg Shill)
The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast
As the Baby Boomer set ages out of driving, are American cities ready to support their changing transportation needs — and what policies should they be writing right now to help seniors and their neighbors weather the silver tsunami? Today, we're posting an extended audio version of our earlier with the fantastic author, attorney, and law professor Greg Shill about his contributions to the new book “. And in it, we dig into thorny questions about whether we need to reject what he calls “design essentialism” and accept the necessity of traffic enforcement; what it will...
info_outlineWe’ve all heard the argument that the soul of America’s economy is based on how much we all love to drive. But does the data support the narrative that cars connect us to far-flung opportunities to make and spend more money — or has our country's car-powered productivity revolution actually stalled out?
Today on The Brake, we're talking to Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute about his new paper on the “mobility-productivity paradox”, and why so many economic indicators actually go down the more we collectively rely on automobiles — and many go up when we build a more multimodal future. And then we get into the really hard question: how to get our fellow Americans to believe it.