The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast

Authors Robert Braun and Richard Randell discuss the hidden harms of automobility, question the promises of technology in solving automobility issues, and envision a post-automobility future with parallels to the tobacco industry. They emphasize the suppression of death and violence in the automobility system and the need to limit automobility and create alternative modes of transportation and public spaces.

Authors Robert Braun and Richard Randell discuss their book 'Post Automobility Futures' on how car culture is a political system deeply entrenched in cultures worldwide. They explore the origins and impact of automobility, the concept of the road as a space of exception where violence occurs, the relationship between automobility and totalitarianism, and the parallels between fascism and certain Muslim groups. They also discuss policing practices like stop and frisk.

Dr. Ian Walker, an environmental psychology expert, discusses the challenges of incentivizing alternative modes of transportation and breaking ingrained travel habits. He explores the ineffectiveness of disincentives and shares strategies for behavior change, such as disruptive events and workplace commute incentives. The chapter emphasizes the need to understand the emotional and irrational factors influencing travel choices and urges listeners to drive less.

Researchers Kelcie Ralph and Nick Klein discuss the opinions of planning and engineering students on sustainable transportation. They highlight the importance of educating professionals and integrating both disciplines in transportation planning. The podcast explores differences between planners and engineers, public understanding of induced demand, and the significance of public advocacy in transportation projects.

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, community organizer and all around rad person Cathy Tuttle, who actually sat down and wrote a car master plan for her own city of Portland, Oregon. And she hopes that advocates and transportation leaders in other communities will follow her lead — because if they don't, she argues, we'll never truly reckon with the impact of car dependency on our communities, much less chart an effective strategy to dismantle it.

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 Brake, host Kea Wilson sits down with Olatunji Oboi Reed, president and CEO of Equiticity, to talk about what he and his colleagues calls "community mobility rituals," or regular, free, hyper-local events that dismantle barriers to sustainable transportation and build the social infrastructure that neighborhoods need. Along the way, we chat about what makes a "mobility ritual" different than your standard-issue Critical Mass ride, why white-dominated transportation authorities tend to overlook the power of community programs, and how mobility rituals might be integrated into the planning process itself. Listen in, check out Equiticity's webinar series on community mobility rituals here.

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 through a mountain of arcane jargon to get there? Today on The Brake, we're talking to Sara Bronin, law professor at Cornell University and the mastermind behind the National Zoning Atlas, a collaborative effort to make the basic building blocks of land use policy make sense to more Americans — and help them see how other communities stack up. We talk about why proponents of people-centered transportation can't afford to overlook zoning, how changing something as simple as a parking code can transform a community, and what bad land use policy can mean for the housing market in walkable neighborhoods (spoiler: death by a thousand cuts.)

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 streets. But what if cities offered a crash course that got both groups speaking the same language — and in the process, transformed ordinary citizens into effective and well-informed transportation advocates? Today on The Brake, we welcome Keith Bartholomew of University of Utah and Nathan McNeil of Portland State University, who are hoping to bring the concept of the "Citizen Transportation Academy" to communities across the U.S. Give it a listen, and be sure to check out the beta version of McNeil's curriculum handbook if you're curious about starting a class in your town.

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, author of the indispensable report From Sorry to Superb: Everything You Need to Know About Great Bus Stops. Host Kea Wilson chats with Buchanan about how cities can create — or fight for — the structural conditions that help create great bus stops, and keep them well-maintained for years to come. And then we dig into why America's best bus networks might not have a whole lot of "great" stops at all — but they would have plenty of adequate ones. Give it a listen, and don't forget to cast your vote in the final round of America's Best Bus Stops by Friday, April 15 at 10am ET.

Streetsblog USAOn 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 modes exist in U.S. cities, too — though not everyone thinks that's necessarily a good thing. Still, de la Peña points out that makeshift mobility may move more people than every traditional train, buses, and taxis around the world combined — and it may "represent probably the single greatest lever to decarbonizing the transportation sector" we have. Tune in for a fascinating conversation about tuktuks, matatus, jitneys, and everything in between, and what the world of informal transportation has to do with decolonizing our collective ideas about what transit can — and should — be. And don't forget to click over to Streetsblog to take a look at a few makeshift mobility vehicles for yourself. In lieu of our traditional transcript, check out just a few of the makeshift mobility options that are serving neighborhoods around the globe: