The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast

Kea Wilson talks to Dr. Bruce Appleyard about designing livable streets in the era of driverless cars, prioritizing human travel and safety in autonomous vehicle design, and the challenge of creating livable streets. They also discuss Dr. Appleyard's book on the topic and the ongoing work to make streets more human-centric.

John Bolecek, a former bicycle and pedestrian planner, discusses his battle with long COVID and how it impacted his active transportation lifestyle. The podcast explores the challenges individuals face with long COVID symptoms and the importance of inclusive transportation options despite accessibility barriers.

Dr. Kimberly Nicholas, researcher and best-selling author, discusses effective car-cutting strategies in European cities and their potential for America. Topics include congestion-bracing, traffic limitations, challenges in achieving climate goals, transition management, successful strategies like congestion charges and free transit, and the importance of experimentation and collaboration.

Advocates Alex Burns and José Antonio Zayas Cabán discuss transforming highways into boulevards for community benefit, rejecting band-aid solutions. They share insights on encouraging communities to dream bigger and tackle racial harm inflicted by highways.

Veronica O. Davis discusses the need for an inclusive transportation approach to repair divided communities in the face of federal investment. She emphasizes prioritizing resources in high-injury areas, community engagement in projects, and advocating for non-car modes of transportation for equity and well-being.

State transportation bills may not get as much attention as their federal counterparts, but they have a colossal impact on how we get around. And the state of Minnesota may have just created one of the most exciting blueprints yet for progressive governments across the country to follow — even if it took them the better part of three decades to do it. On this episode of The Brake, we sit down with two Minnesota lawmakers and transportation committee chairmen — Senator Scott Dibble and Representative Frank Hornstein — to unpack what's in their massive new transportation finance and policy bill, as well as how it will help the Land of 10,000 lakes meet its ambitious driving reduction goals, and what other communities can learn from their fight to get it over the finish line.  Listen in, check out the full text of the bill here, or head over to Streetsblog for a cheat sheet. 

On paper, a lot of people care about making their cities less car-dependent — but not all of us are taking action to actually do it. So why do so many people stay on the sidelines, and what will itake to get them into the fight?  Today, we're sitting down with Carter Lavin, a Bay-area activist who's made it his mission to give people the skills, vision, and capacity to campaign for better sustainable transportation policies in their town, whether they're candidates for office, bike/walk nonprofits dealing with burnout, or just a couple of neighbors who just want a speed bump on their street already. Listen in, check out our past coverage of Carter's work, and check out his website for more info — including free online trainings, opportunties to sponsor other activists, and more. 

late's cities reporter Henry Grabar's new book, Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World (Penguin Press), could have been a sleeper, aimed at livable cities nerds who already know how drivers' obsessive demand for free car storage has ruined our cities and enabled sprawl, all the while devastating our air quality and congesting our roads. Instead, it's quickly becoming a media sensation that's catching the attention of people far outside the movement — and getting them talking about the need for reform. On this episode of The Brake, guest host Gersh Kuntzman gabs with Grabar about some of the most shocking stories from America's long love affair with asphalt, including Chicago, where a privatization-obsessed mayor undervalued parking spaces — and lost $1 billion in a deal with Wall Street in the process— Los Angeles, where downtown merchants were so obsessed with "getting back" suburban shoppers that they turned their entire neighborhood into a shopping crater, and more.

What is an electric car, really?  Is it a godsend that could save the planet from climate catastrophe by slashing emissions in the sector that contributes the most greenhouse gases in virtually every developed country in the world Is it an important tool for climate harm reduction that we have to invest in big, even if it doesn’t solve all of the problems of car dependent transportation systems? Or is it just a heavier and more heavily subsidized car that makes nearly all of the core problems of car dependency worse, while using its climate benefits as a screen to shield us from those harms? On today's episode of The Brake, we sit down with Agnieszka Stefaniec, co-author of the new paper "A wolf in sheep's clothing: Exposing the structural violence of private electric automobility," to get her take — and talk about why the EV debate is so polarizing. 

One in nine Americans live in poverty, and millions more live in a precarious place somewhere between precarity and true security. A new book argues, though, that it doesn't have to be this way — and that we can all play a role in challenging the systems and individual choices that "keep poor people poor" for benefit for everyone else.  On this episode of The Brake, host Kea Wilson sits down with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Matthew Desmond to talk about his new book Poverty by America, the poverty abolition movement, and how it intersects with the movement to end car dependency. (Hint: it's not just about hefty monthly car payments.)  Listen in, and buy your copy anywhere books are sold.