The War on Cars

For a few years after Uber launched in 2009, it seemed like the on-demand ride-hailing service might be an advance in the war on cars — a way for more people to share fewer vehicles and to reduce overall automobile dependence. Fast forward a decade, and the rise of Uber (along with Lyft) has instead resulted in increased congestion, reductions in transit ridership, and the exploitation of a precarious workforce that the company would love to make obsolete altogether. In this episode, we talk with New York Times tech reporter Mike Isaac about his new book, “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber,” in which he chronicles the rise and fall of Uber’s co-founder, Travis Kalanick. We hear what Mike has to say about the cult of the founder and the way Kalanick’s winner-take-all mentality has negatively affected the streets of the world’s cities. Support the podcast on Patreon. Rate and review the war effort on iTunes. Buy a War on Cars t-shirt at Cotton Bureau. SHOW NOTES: Mike Isaac’s new book, Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber, is available everywhere, but you should get it at your local bookstore if you can. Follow him on Twitter @MikeIsaac. Another study shows Uber and Lyft suck riders off transit (CityLab) Everything bad about Uber and Lyft (Streetsblog USA) Travis Kalanick argues with an Uber driver about his business model (Bloomberg) This episode was directed and recorded by Josh Wilcox at Brooklyn Podcasting Studio, and  edited by Matt Cutler. Natalie Jones taped Mike Isaac in San Francisco. Find us onTwitter @TheWarOnCars, Sarah Goodyear @buttermilk1 Aaron Naparstek @Naparstek and Doug Gordon @BrooklynSpoke. Email us: thewaroncars@gmail.com https://thewaroncars.org

In Part 1 of "The Problem With Public Meetings" we took you inside a difficult community meeting in Fort Greene, Brooklyn and urged compassion and understanding for neighbors who aren’t quite yet on board with The War on Cars. Here in Part 2, we take you to yet another community meeting, this time, in Park Slope, Brooklyn where diplomacy fails, the action gets kinetic and a TWOC co-host is physically assaulted by a bike lane-hating conspiracy theorist meditation instructor. Yes, you heard that right. How do you know when it’s time to stop seeking common ground with parking-obsessed, car-addicted, change-averse members of your community and start working on their utter, total and overwhelming defeat in the arena of local politics? Strap on your helmet, soldiers. Get ready for The Battle of 9th Street. Are you feeling the Shock & Awe? Support The War on Cars on Patreon! Rate and review us on iTunes. Buy a War on Cars t-shirt at Cotton Bureau.  SHOW NOTES: Video of The Battle of 9th Street via Jake Offenhartz Video of the The Battle of 9th Street via Brian Howald. Bikelash’s Latest Tactics: Pedophile Smears and Conspiracy Theories, Streetsblog. People have been fighting to stop the carnage and make 9th Street safer for years and years and years. It's endless. The most recent 9th Street horror: What New York Should Learn From the Park Slope Crash That Killed Two Children, New York Magazine. Is a Better Public Meeting Possible? Casey Berkovitz, The Century Foundation. Progressive Boomers are Making it Impossible for Cities to Fix the Housing Crisis. Michael Hobbes, The Huffington Post. This episode was edited by Matt Cutler. Find us on Twitter @TheWarOnCars, Aaron Naparstek @Naparstek, Sarah Goodyear @buttermilk1 and Doug Gordon @BrooklynSpoke. Email us: thewaroncars@gmail.com https://thewaroncars.org

In the battle to make cities better for walking, biking and transit, there’s no more important front line than local community meetings. So when a flyer advertising a town-hall forum about the New York City Department of Transportation’s alleged “war on cars” began appearing in Brooklyn neighborhoods, we knew we had to attend. On this episode, we discuss what happens when regular citizens gather to discuss losing precious parking spaces to benefit the greater good. What are some tactics advocates can use to bring people around to their point of view? Given the typical format of these forums, is finding common ground even possible? Is there a better way to conduct public meetings or is screaming at each other in a church social hall a necessary evil? [NOTE: Due to some late-breaking developments, this is part one of a two-part series on public meetings.] Support the podcast on Patreon. Rate and review the war effort on iTunes. Buy a War on Cars t-shirt at Cotton Bureau. SHOW NOTES: Is a Better Public Meeting Possible? Casey Berkovitz, The Century Foundation. Progressive Boomers are Making it Impossible for Cities to Fix the Housing Crisis. Michael Hobbes, The Huffington Post. Background on the reaction to the NYC DOT residential loading zone program. NY Daily News. A play-by-play of the Fort Greene “War on Cars” meeting. Via Julianne Cuba, Streetsblog. This episode was edited by Jamie Kaiser. Find us on Twitter @TheWarOnCars, Aaron Naparstek @Naparstek, Sarah Goodyear @buttermilk1 and Doug Gordon @BrooklynSpoke. Email us: thewaroncars@gmail.com https://thewaroncars.org  

Twenty-one people riding bicycles have been killed this year on the streets of New York City. That’s more than double the number of bike fatalities in all of 2018. In early July, after a terrible week in which three people on bicycles were killed in quick succession, more than a thousand demonstrators showed up in Lower Manhattan’s Washington Square Park for a “Die-In” to demand that officials take more aggressive action to make streets safe. In this episode, we hear from Die-In participants and Doug, Sarah and Aaron talk about advocacy, activism and change-making. Is it better to be polite and work within the system or disobedient and disruptive? Who in city government should be the target of these urgent calls to action, the politicians or the police? What can we learn from the work of other grassroots social and political movements throughout history? And do NYPD bicycle cops ever actually ride their bikes or do they only use them as crowd control barricades? Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive stickers, T-shirts, exclusive access to special audio content and more. Buy an official War on Cars T-shirt at Cotton Bureau. Rate and review The War On Cars on iTunes. SHOW NOTES: Washington Square Park Die-In Coverage (Streetsblog) Hundreds of cyclists stage ‘die-in’ at Washington Square Park following recent biker fatalities (New York Daily News) See the guy holding the “De Blasio to Cyclists: Drop Dead” sign? That’s Doug!  Cyclist deaths in NYC: A month-by-month breakdown (AM New York) Robyn Hightman: The Miraculous and Tragic Story of a Life Transformed by Cycling. A phenomenal story by Peter Flax in Bicycling Magazine. NYPD Cracks Down On Cyclists, Not Drivers, Where Truck Driver Killed Bike Messenger (Gothamist) Insane video of the aftermath of an NYPD officer in a police SUV knocking a man off of his bicycle for “his own safety.” Ernest Askew wouldn’t give up his bike (AM New York).  State Senator Sees 'Built-in Racism And Classism' Behind A Cyclist's Death In Brownsville (Gothamist) Here is Devra Freelander’s web site and a great review of her work and her legacy in Surface Magazine.  Cement truck drivers from the same company involved in the killing of Devra Freelander blame the victim instead of taking any semblance of responsibility (AM New York, Streetsblog, Bklyner) This episode was edited by Jaime Kaiser.  Find us on Twitter @TheWarOnCars, Aaron Naparstek @Naparstek, Doug Gordon @BrooklynSpoke, Sarah Goodyear @buttermilk1. The War on Cars is on Instagram and Facebook too. Email us! thewaroncars@gmail.com https://thewaroncars.org

When you’re used to the culture of streets in the United States of America — that is, variations on kill or be killed — traveling to countries that do it differently can be both a shock to the system and an inspiration. So it was when TWOC co-host Sarah Goodyear spent three weeks in Japan this summer, and heard exactly one car honk in that entire time. In this episode, we discuss the human infrastructure of mutual respect that makes Japanese cities so different from American ones; hear from Japanese street activists about how they’re inspired by their counterparts in the United States and Europe; and talk about what we can learn by leaving home. Also, members of a group called the Tokyo Picnic Club discuss “the right to picnic” as a basic human right for people in crowded cities.  Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive stickers, T-shirts, exclusive access to special audio content and more. Buy an official War on Cars T-shirt at Cotton Bureau. Rate and review The War On Cars on iTunes. SHOW NOTES:  Bike ambassador Chad Feyen offers bicycle tours of Tokyo at Freewheeling Japan. You can also follow him on Twitter. Connect with the network of Japanese public space activists called Sotonoba. Learn about the Tokyo Picnic Club and their fight for better public space in Tokyo. Plus, a cautionary tale from The Onion: Woman who ‘Loves Brazil’ Has Only Seen Four Square Miles of It  This episode was produced by Matt Cutler and recorded by Josh Wilcox at the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio. Find us on Twitter: @TheWarOnCars, Sarah Goodyear @buttermilk1, Doug Gordon @BrooklynSpoke, Aaron Naparstek @Naparstek. Email us: thewaroncars@gmail.com https://thewaroncars.org

Barcelona, Spain is testing out a powerful new weapon in the war on cars. It’s called the Superilla or, in english, the "Superblock." Last October, Vox Media's energy and environment reporter David Roberts spent ten days in Barcelona taking a deep dive into the city’s ambitious plan to reclaim more than half of its total street space from motor vehicles by creating five hundred Superblocks. In this one-on-one conversation, David sits down with TWOC co-host Aaron Naparstek and tells the inside story of Barcelona’s visionary car-fighting, air-cleaning and neighborhood-empowering strategy. Could Superblocks even be a solution for fixing dysfunctional liberal democracies? It's so crazy it just might work.  Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive stickers, T-shirts, exclusive access to special audio content and more. Buy an official War on Cars T-shirt at Cotton Bureau. Rate and review The War On Cars on iTunes. SHOW NOTES:  Barcelona’s Radical Plan to Take Back Streets From Cars is David Roberts’ must-read five-part series at Vox. Seriously, it's great.  The Vox team produced a video about Superblocks as did Streetfilms' Clarence Eckerson.  BCNecologia is the organization behind Barcelona’s Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan and Superblocks project.   Rethinking Manhattan’s Grid at CityLab.  Follow David on Twitter.  This episode was edited by Matt Cutler. Eilís O'Neill recorded David Roberts in Seattle.  Find us on Twitter: @TheWarOnCars, Sarah Goodyear @buttermilk1, Doug Gordon @BrooklynSpoke, Aaron Naparstek @Naparstek. Email us: thewaroncars@gmail.com  https://thewaroncars.org

What do comedy and fighting the war on cars have in common? For answers, Doug talks with Adam Conover, the creator and host of TruTV’s “Adam Ruins Everything.” The show, a new season of which premieres on August 13th, combines humor, sharp writing and deeply sourced research to deconstruct the conventional wisdom about subjects most Americans take for granted, including cars. In this special one-on-one interview, Adam explains why taking the bus in LA is better than driving, discusses how excited he was to tell people the history of the word “jaywalking,” and offers lessons on presenting information to anyone fighting their own war on cars. Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive stickers, T-shirts, exclusive access to special audio content and more. Buy an official War on Cars T-shirt at Cotton Bureau. Rate and review The War On Cars on iTunes. SHOW NOTES: A new season of “Adam Ruins Everything” premieres on August 13th on TruTV. Listen and subscribe to “Factually! With Adam Conover” from Earwolf. Adam explains the origins of the word “Jaywalking.” Adam and an animated Donald Shoup discuss the high cost of free parking. Twitter: @TheWarOnCars, Sarah Goodyear @buttermilk1, Doug Gordon@BrooklynSpoke, Aaron Naparstek @Naparstek Questions? Suggestions? Email us: thewaroncars@gmail.com.

In this TWOC Extra, we present co-host Doug Gordon's full interview with Ray Magliozzi of "Car Talk," conducted in February 2019 at the WBUR studios in Boston and previously available only to Patreon supporters. Hear more about Ray's thoughts on how cities are changing to be more friendly to people who aren't in cars and learn why he sometimes runs red lights on his bike. ----- For nearly thirty years, brothers Ray and Tom Magliozzi were the hosts of NPR’s “Car Talk” and the voices of American car culture. Famous for their distinctive Boston accents and infectious laughs, Click and Clack didn’t just diagnose engine troubles, they recognized that people’s personal relationships often revolved around their automobiles. In a War on Cars exclusive, Doug sits down with Ray Magliozzi to talk about car culture, the brothers’ surprising war on SUVs, and whether or not “Bike Talk” could even be half the phenomenon “Car Talk” was… and still is. Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive exclusive access to the extended interview with Ray Magliozzi plus TWOC stickers and other rewards. Buy a “buttery soft” War on Cars T-shirt at Cotton Bureau. Rate and review The War On Cars on iTunes. Show Notes: Learn more about Car Talk… …and listen to “The Best of Car Talk.” “Car Talk’s Tom Magliozzi: An Unlikely Environmental Advocate.” (ThinkProgress) Tom and Ray’s “Live Large, Drive Smaller” anti-SUV campaign. (The New Yorker) Tom and Ray’s 2007 letter to Congress in favor of higher fuel standards. (Car Talk) Dispatches from Aaron’s years-long Twitter crusade to banish “Car Talk” from WNYC. Twitter: @TheWarOnCars, Doug Gordon @BrooklynSpoke, Aaron Naparstek @Naparstek, Sarah Goodyear @buttermilk1 Questions? Suggestions? Email us: thewaroncars@gmail.com.

No, you’ve not tuned into late-night Lite FM radio. In this special mailbag episode, Sarah and Doug hear from listeners around the world, taking your questions and comments on everything from disabled cyclists, how to make bike lanes as common as sidewalks, when to take the car keys from aging parents and grandparents, the frustrations women feel when told what to wear when riding a bicycle, whether or not cyclists should share a friendly wave with other cyclists and how to find joy while fighting a daily War on Cars. Buy a War on Cars t-shirt at Cotton Bureau. Enlist today! Support the podcast on Patreon. Rate and review the war effort on iTunes. Show Notes:  Get to know Delilah. “Cambridge’s New Bike Lane Plan is ‘Bikelash’-Proof.” (CityLab) New York City passes a new “Vision Zero Design Standards Law. (Curbed) Does what a person wears while cycling make a difference? Dr. Ian Walker tried to find out. (Bicycling, ScienceDirect, Association for Psychological Science) Find us on Twitter @TheWarOnCars, Sarah Goodyear @buttermilk1, Doug Gordon @BrooklynSpoke and Aaron Naparstek @Naparstek. Email us: thewaroncars@gmail.com https://thewaroncars.org  

Autonomous cars? Who needs ‘em. If you want to improve your city then design it so that children have more autonomy. In this episode we hit the playground with architecture critic Alexandra Lange, the author of “The Design of Childhood.” To grow up into healthy, functional adults, kids need opportunities to experience freedom and independence. Alexandra argues that car-dominated streets make that more difficult. A city designed for cars is a city that’s lousy for families -- and pretty much everyone else. Plus: The surprising history of playgrounds. In celebration of our twentieth episode, the first twenty people who enlist in The War on Cars Patreon campaign after this episode drops will receive a bonus #BanCars sticker.  Buy a War on Cars t-shirt at Cotton Bureau. Rate and review the war effort on iTunes. Show Notes:  Visit Alexandra Lange’s web site and follow her on Twitter and Instagram. Buy a copy of her book, “The Design of Childhood: How the Material World Shapes Independent Kids.”   How children lost the right to roam in four generations. (Daily Mail)  Peter Norton’s “Fighting Traffic” is a mind-boggling (and scholarly!) historical account of the bloody battle for city streets at the dawn of the motor age in the American city. This episode was produced by Matt Cutler. Find us onTwitter @TheWarOnCars, Aaron Naparstek @Naparstek, Sarah Goodyear @buttermilk1 and Doug Gordon @BrooklynSpoke. Email us: thewaroncars@gmail.com https://thewaroncars.org