The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast

In communities across America, people are getting angry about traffic violence. But what does it take to turn that anger to a full-blown movement, with neighbors fighting alongside one another to change the status quo?  Today, we tapped Elizabeth Creely of the San Francisco-based grassroots advocacy organization Safe Street Rebel, which has been making good trouble to change the transportation sta...

Epidemiologists around the world have sounded the alarm about the health risks of rising noise pollution, and called out cars as one of the largest sources of the crisis. In our quest to make cities quieter, though, noise researcher Dr. Erica Walker says we're missing a critical conversation about how unique communities experience their local soundscapes, both in the streets and beyond — and who w...

Europe is on the brink of putting "Intelligent Speed Assist" technology on all new cars to slow drivers down to local limits — and even some U.S. states are hoping to follow suit . But the minute "speed governors" get mentioned, tempers flare, and it could make the movement to throttle U.S. drivers a challenging fight to win.  Today on  The Brake,  we asked mobility researcher David Zipper to give...

Free transit pilots are popping up around the world — and so are heated debates about whether they will stymie agencies' efforts to delivery the high-quality service that U.S. riders need. But what if that argument is missing something fundamental about why we commodify basic mobility in the first place, and the many ways marginalized people are impacted when they can't afford a fare?  Today on  T...

Last time on the Brake, we chatted with authors Robert Braun and Richard Randell about why automobility isn't really about cars at all — and how it's beocme what they call a "totalitarian system" that touches virtually every part of our lives.  Today, we bring you part two of that conversation, and dive into the difficult question of what a world  beyond  automobility might look like — and how on...

Car culture is all around us. But is it really just about vehicles, roads, motorists and violent commercials on TV, or is it is a political system as deeply entrenched in cultures around the world as our governments, economic systems, and structures of oppression?  On this episode of the  The Brake,  we sat down with authors Robert Braun and Richard Randell to talk about their book  Post Automobil...

Even as gas prices hit historic highs, many Americans aren't driving any less — because so many of their communities are so car-dependent, they don't really have a choice. But what about people who  could  skip the pump but don't, simply because they're in the habit of driving everywhere they go?   On this episode of The Brake, host Kea Wilson sits down with environmental psychology expert Dr. Ian...

Planning and engineering students are poised to play a major role in shaping America's transportation system for decades to come. But do either of them agree with sustainable transportation advocates about what that future should look like — or even with each other?  Today on The Brake,  host Kea Wilson spoke with researchers Kelcie Ralph and Nick Klein, who conducted a new survey  on how well the...

Countless communities across America say they're planning for a future where more residents walk, bike, and roll to get around. So why do transportation leaders spend so much time drafting "pedestrian master plans" and "bike master plans"  without  accompanying "car master plans" aimed at building a world where fewer people get behind the wheel?  Today on The Brake,  we're joined by urban planner,...

Neighborhood walking tours, group bike rides, and organized strolls in the park aren't typically thought of as front-line strategies to break a city's dependence on automobiles. Some advocates argue that without events like them, though, U.S. neighborhoods will  never  transform into truly people-centered places — particularly in socially and racially marginalized communities.  On this episode of...

The humble zoning code may be the single most important tool that sustainable transportation advocates can wield in the fight to end car dependence ... if they can make heads or tails of their communities' hundreds of pages of local laws. But what if any American could tell at a glance how her unique local land use policies influence the way she and her neighbors get around, without having to dig...

Anyone who's ever tried to get a new crosswalk in their neighborhood knows how hard it can be just to figure out who to call — never mind how to get whoever's on the other end of the line to listen. And any transportation professional knows how challenging it can be to get that call from a resident, and realize that they don't have the faintest idea of how decisions actually get made on our street...

Streetsblog's America's Best Bus Stops Contest is down to its final two contenders. Nationwide, though, the United States have a lot more sorry stops than good ones — and to understand how our top two wonderful waiting areas bucked the trend, we brought in an expert for some game-time commentary.  Today, we're talking with bus stop expert and Transit Center Senior Research Associate Mary Buchanan,...

Streetsblog USA On this episode of The Brake , Kea talks to Benjie de la Peña, chair of the Global Partnership for Informal Transportation and author of the must-read Substack newsletter Makeshift Mobility , about all the ways that people navigate their cities on shared modes without the support of taxpayer-funded public institutions. And though they're easier to spot in the global south, these mo...

A new zine from a top transit nonprofit explores not just why the needs of women need to be at the center of U.S. transit planning, but what it's actually like for gender-marginalized people who are working to change the status quo — in their own words, images, and even songs.  In their unconventional and inspiring new zine, Subtext , editors Stephanie Lotshaw and Ashley Pryce of the nonprofit Tra...

This week on Streetsblog, we looked at two communities who each planned to calm an ultra-wide, ultra-dangerous road with the support of the vast majority of the residents they asked, only to have those plans scuttled in the face of vocal opposition. In San Antonio, Texas , that opposition is coming from the top down, as state DOT leaders and the governor himself step in and insist that 7-lane Broa...

The phrase "car accident" has become so ubiquitous in American life that most people don't blink when they hear it, at least if they're not a street safety advocate who understands just how much damage that term has done. But not even the most diehard Streetsblog readers may realize just how recent the concept of a traffic "accident" is — or how deeply it impacts our ability to prevent future cras...