Most bikeshare rides taken on U.S. soil happen in a handful of gigantic cities, on systems maintained by big corporations. At YoGo Bikeshare, though, Ronnell Elkins and his team are building a bespoke micromobility option specifically for his neighbors in Youngstown, Ohio — and hoping to create a model for other small cities to combat car dependency. On this episode of The Brake, host Kea Wilson sits down with Elkins to talk about what makes this Black-led, family-owned bikeshare stand out, why YoGo's investing only in e-bikes, and what it takes to get a town of 60,000 people on board a revolutionary new transportation mode.  Learn more about YoGo Bikeshare on their website. 

Across America, a shocking number of drivers are illegally hacking their cars to be as loud as possible — and evidence is mounting that the phenomenon has a huge impact on public health. But what can cities do about it?  Today on The Brake, we sat down with researcher Nick Ferenchak, whose work on traffic safety we've been following for years. Now, he's turning his attention to the link between vehicle noise pollution and dangerous driving — and launching a company to help cities put equitable and effective noise camera programs on their streets.  Join us for a deep dive on noise cameras, and learn more Not-A-Loud and Nick's research on his website. 

If the typical professional athlete talks about transportation at all, it's usually in the context of a mulit-million SUV commercial. Soccer star Tesho Akindele, though, isn't the typical athlete — and as he transitions out of his career onthe field, he's making building walkable, bikeable, equitable cities his full-time job.  Today on The Brake, we talk to Tesho about how he fell in love with urbanism, why he uses his platform to talk about parking minimums, and the secret to getting non-wonks on board the movement to end car dependency and create people-centered places. Follow Tesho at Twitter @Tesho13.

Not enough U.S. mayors make sustainable transportation a priority, and even the ones that do don't always get much done. On today's episode of The Brake, though, we spoke with one elected official who's making massive progress to make streets safer, greener and more equitable in his small town — and sharing lessons in leadership that can scale to even the biggest cities.  In this extended conversation with Mayor John Bauters of Emeryville, Calif., we learn more about his successful effort to put a seat at every bus stop in his town, which Streetsblog covered last month, and what it takes to get humble yet ambitious mobility projects like this done. And along the way, we chat about why he thinks climate change is a losing campaign issue even though it's the most important issue of our time, why elected officials should get outside more, and why he thinks that you — yes, you — should run for office. 

Mass memorials to the victims of traffic violence are a rarity on American roads. But it wasn't always that way — and there's a fascinating history behind why so many lost lives have become virtually invisible in the public realm today.  On this episode of The Brake, Kea Wilson sits down with historian and author Peter Norton to talk about how America used to memorialize car crash deaths in the early days of the automobile, and why automakers invested so much into reshaping the way we grieve. And then they chat about what it might take to bring the national traffic violence epidemic out of the shadows, and why even everyday non-lethal road trauma deserves to be called out.  Listen in, and learn more about traffic violence memorials in our earlier coverage. 

In communities across the U.S., city leaders have reacted to safety concerns about the shared e-scooter industry with fleet curfews, neighborhood restrictions, and even outright bans. Those blunt policies, though, might hurt more people than they help — especially when it comes to socially and racially marginalized communities without other ways to get around.   On today's special edition of The Brake, we're re-broadcasting an episode of Charles T. Brown's Arrested Mobility podcast about what happened when the city of St. Louis forced e-scooters out of its downtown, featuring an interview with our own host Kea Wilson, who covered the story for Streetsblog last year. And along the way, we'll explore why so many places beyond Missouri's borders have enacted similar policies — and why Black and brown Americans, in particular, deserve so much more from their transportation leaders. 

In 2012, Jeff Speck’s Walkable City sparked a conversation about why pedestrianized places matter and became one of the best-selling books about the built environment in recent memory. Ten years later, though, so much about the world has changed — even as human-centered communities have become more important than ever. On this episode of The Brake, host Kea Wilson sits down with Speck to talk about an update to his classic book featuring 100 pages of new material, and how new technology, pandemics, and the movement to make cities anti-racist have reshaped his view of America’s transportation future. And along the way, he shares some of the highlights from his reading list, and how his goals as a pedestrian advocate are continuing to evolve. Read an exclusive preview of Walkable City: 10th Anniversary Edition here.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans lose a loved one in a car crash every single year. So why don't more of us talk about it — and why don't more of us take action to prevent other families from enduring those tragedies, too? On this special episode of The Brake, host Kea Wilson has an emotional conversation with advocate Dan Langenkamp about the people they've each recently lost to traffic violence, and what it means to mourn through advocacy.  Dan's wife, Sarah, was a celebrated diplomat to Ukraine and a mother of two young sons before she was killed by a right-turning truck driver as she biked home from her children's new elementary school on August 25. Now, Dan is gathering cyclists from around the country to retrace Sarah's route and ride all the way to Congress to demand safer streets, vehicles, and systems — and he wants you to take part.  Register for the Ride for Your Life, support the Langenkamp family's ongoing fundraising efforts for bicycle safety organizations, and learn more the life and legacy of Sarah Langenkamp. 

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 status quo since 2020. Along the way, they've done pop-up traffic calming on the sites of recent crash deaths, put up people-protected bike lanes where the city wouldn’t build ones out of concrete, and gained some critical wisdom on how to not just create, but sustain and grow a movement to end car dependency, even when they don’t win every battle. Learn more about Safe Street Rebel on their website.

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 we harm when we police decibel levels without listening to marginalized people first.  In this episode of The Brake, we sit down with Dr. Walker to explore not just why ultra-quiet electric cars won't actually turn down the volume on our neighborhoods much, but who gets to decide what our cities should sound like, how we enforce arbitrary auditory standards, and why a peaceful, walkable street is often the opposite of silent.  Learn more about Dr. Erica Walker and the Community Noise Lab here.