The War on Cars

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 met Tim when he appeared on a panel with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo that Sarah moderated during Climate Wee...

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 . If you spend any time at all on social media, you've seen countless videos of all kinds of different people talking about all kinds of...

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...

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 o...

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 to City Hall. 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 asked Yonah Freemark — a researcher in cities,...

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. Th...

At this year's Velo-city conference in Gdansk, 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 con...

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 campa...

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...

Recently, on an episode of the Netflix show Everybody's Live with John Mulaney , the subject turned to bike lanes. Or rather, the subject was turned to bike lanes by Natasha Lyonne. The actress, writer, director and producer said that bike lanes should be "shut down" and claimed that there is no space for them in Manhattan. Journalist Alissa Walker of Torched was on Everybody's Live as a "public t...

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 . And don't miss our new book, "Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile," now available for pre-sale where...

Charles T. Brown is a longtime friend of the podcast who was last with us in 2023 . We welcomed him back to talk about his important new book, Arrested Mobility: Overcoming the Threat to Black Movement , out now from Island Press. Charles is the founder and principal of Equitable Cities , a minority- and veteran-owned urban planning, public policy and research firm focused at the intersection of t...

NOTE: This episode was originally released as a Patreon-exclusive bonus . For more episodes like this, please join The War on Cars on Patreon . We're an independent podcast and rely on listener support. Thanks! Marco te Brömmelstroet, also known as "The Fietsprofessor," returns to The War on Cars to discuss a new study he co-authored with  Dr. Ian Walker , another former guest of the podcast. The...

"Why are so many trans people into urban planning?" That's the question independent journalist and co-host of the  Cancel Me, Daddy podcast Katelyn Burns asked her Bluesky followers, and she got an overwhelming response. Katelyn wrote up some of those answers in a recent piece on The Flytrap , the feminist media outlet she recently co-founded and launched. It's a thought-provoking read. We talked...

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 . This is an excerpt from our interview with Ed Niedermeyer, the author of  Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors. Ed has bee...

Since early February, a protest phenomenon has been building steadily across the United States, springing up at scores of Tesla dealerships from coast to coast. Organizers call it Tesla Takedown. It's remarkable in part because in today's United States, we have engineered an environment that prioritizes automotive convenience and speed—and in the process deadens civic life and makes protest diffic...

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 . You may remember Marco te Brömmelstroet , also known as "The Fietsprofessor," from episode 65, "Where Are the Bike Lanes In Lego City?...

Trump's on-again-off-again tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico are causing chaos across the entire economy, but they're hitting the auto industry especially hard. The big three U.S. automakers rely on an integrated supply and manufacturing process that sees raw materials and parts crossing international borders multiple times before each finished car rolls off the assembly line. The tariffs...

Laura Laker is a London-based freelance journalist who specializes in writing about cycling and urban transport. We talked with her about the year she spent riding around Britain on the United Kingdom's 13,000-mile National Cycle Network—an enlightening and often hilarious odyssey that she documents in her first book , Potholes and Pavements: A Bumpy Ride on Britain's National Cycle Network . We a...

Can you believe this is our second emergency episode about congestion pricing? This time, we're responding to the Trump administration's attack on the program, which has been in effect since January , delivering exactly the results that policymakers had hoped for. Despite those early signs of success, on Wednesday, February 19th, Sean Duffy, the new US DOT Secretary, sent an email to New York Gove...

The Trump administration has upended the entire United States government over the last several weeks, sending Elon Musk and his minions into the guts of pretty much every federal department in a crusade for what they're calling "efficiency." Funds that were legally appropriated by Congress have been frozen, and in some cases even clawed back. The battle to preserve all sorts of spending is now in...

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 . Last month we had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Ray Delahanty , aka City Nerd on YouTube , for a live show presented by the Hun...

It's the CXLIVth episode of The War on Cars, and just like in years past we're taking a look at the ads that aired during the Super Bowl. This year, there weren't a whole lot of ads specifically designed to sell cars and trucks, but there was still plenty of car-adjacent stuff to talk about—from ads highlighting the urban/suburban divide to an amazing halftime show from Kendrick Lamar featuring a...

Donald Shoup, a towering figure in the world of urban planning and a distinguished professor emeritus at the UCLA Luskin School of Public affairs, died this week. He was 86 years old. As a tribute to such an influential, brilliant, and witty scholar, we are re-releasing this episode from 2023. ---- Parking is at the heart of every fight about how we build our cities and towns, with effects that go...

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 . You've probably heard us talking about how we have written a book that will be coming out this fall. We are super excited to share more...