The War on Cars is a podcast about car culture, mobility and the future of cities. We bring you news, commentary and stories about the worldwide battle to undo a century's worth of damage wrought by the automobile. The War on Cars is waged by three leading voices of the livable streets movement, Doug Gordon, Sarah Goodyear and Aaron Naparstek. Liberate your city. Enlist today in The War on Cars.
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What We Did on Our Summer Vacation, featuring Rick Steves
48:52
48:52
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Why do Americans spend lots of money to visit walkable, bikeable, transit-friendly European cities, only to come back to the U.S. and oppose all those things where they live? Rick Steves has some thoughts. Countless people know and love the popular travel writer for his guidebooks and long-running television programs, which encourage people to expl…
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This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars. In June, Doug attended Velo-city, an annual cycling summit hosted by the European Cyclists' Federation that brings the bike world together. This year's conference was held in the Belgian ci…
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Listener Origin Stories (Patreon Bonus Re-Release)
1:19:35
1:19:35
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1:19:35
Episode 133: Listener Origin Stories (Patreon bonus re-release) We’re taking a short break to work on our forthcoming book and some of our upcoming fall shows. We’ll be back with new free episodes in early September. In the meantime, please enjoy this re-release of our Patreon bonus episode from December 26, 2023. You can get all of our Patreon bon…
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TEASER: Walking 4,000 Miles with Holden Ringer
3:33
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This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars. This month’s exclusive Patreon bonus episode is an interview with Holden Ringer, who recently finished walking more than 4,000 miles across the country from the starting point of LaPush, Wa…
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Vehicular Cycling and John Forester, Part 2
1:07:04
1:07:04
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NOTE: This is part two of a two-part episode. To hear both parts right now and without ads, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars. In part two of our deep dive on John Forester and his 1976 book Effective Cycling, we take a look at the paltry data and research underpinning the alleged safety benefits of vehicular cycling and the long-term i…
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Vehicular Cycling and John Forester, Part 1
1:07:51
1:07:51
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NOTE: This is part one of a two-part episode. To hear both parts right now and without ads, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars. "Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles." That quote is the core philosophy of John Forester, the father of vehicular cycling. Forester, who died in 2020, was a major figure in t…
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51
Critical Mass Nairobi with Cyprine Odada
24:17
24:17
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Cyprine Odada is the Executive Director of Critical Mass Nairobi and an urban planner specializing in active mobility. Ever since founding the Kenyan capital’s chapter of Critical Mass, the largest gathering of non-competitive cyclists in Africa, Cyprine has helped get more people on bikes from different neighborhoods, ages, and social and economic…
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Because it has the word “engineering” right in there, the field of traffic engineering is something most people assume is governed by science and rational rules. But a new book, written by a traffic engineer himself, argues that is not the case at all. In Killed by a Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion That Science Underlies Our Transportatio…
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Why don’t more women ride bicycles in London? The advocacy group London Cycling Campaign wanted to know, and so they asked. What they discovered was disturbing: Among more than a thousand women surveyed, nine out of ten said they experienced verbal abuse and aggression while biking. Ninety-three percent said drivers had used vehicles to intimidate …
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51
Kathy Hochul's Congestion Pricing Flip-Flop Fiasco
55:33
55:33
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In this emergency episode, we discuss New York State Governor Kathy Hochul's 11th-hour decision to "indefinitely suspend" congestion pricing, the program that would have charged drivers to enter Manhattan below 60th Street. Her move, announced in a prerecorded video on Wednesday, June 5th, came mere weeks before congestion pricing was set to launch…
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This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars. For this month's exclusive Patreon bonus episode, we take a look at three states that have attempted to ban everything from bus rapid transit to taxing driving by vehicle miles traveled. Wh…
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An unlikely cycling revolution is happening in one of the coldest big cities on the planet: Edmonton, Alberta. Despite freezing temps, lots of sprawl, big trucks and an economy built on pulling oil out of the Albertan tar sands, the Western Canadian city is in the midst of a four-year, $100 million CAD investment in active transportation that will …
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When Driving Is Not an Option with Anna Zivarts
40:55
40:55
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The United States has built a transportation system centered around automobiles. But one-third of the nation’s population can’t drive, whether because of disability, age, financial hardship, immigration status, or any of a host of other factors. Those tens of millions of people are often invisible to planners and elected officials, and that’s why A…
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TEASER: Dodge’s “Deeply Weird” Pitch for Electric Muscle Cars
7:05
7:05
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***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.*** We were getting ready to record our "Cybertrash" episode with Ed Niedermeyer last month when Ed happened to bring to our attention to this "deeply weird" ten minute-long extended car …
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Elon Musk’s gigantic, stainless steel, 1980s sci fi movie–inspired Cybertruck is starting to show up on city streets. Perhaps you’ve had the misfortune of seeing one rolling through your neighborhood. If not, you’ve almost certainly seen some of the vehicle’s many truly epic fails on the Internet. The Cybertruck might not work very well, but it sti…
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The Texas Freeway Fight with Megan Kimble
40:14
40:14
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In the 20th century, planners and policymakers smashed Interstate highways through the middle of every major city in the United States. In the 21st century, we understand the many ways that urban freeways were economic, environmental, and racial justice disasters. And yet, incredibly, the State of Texas is planning to spend over $64 billion in the …
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It has never been more expensive to insure a car in the United States. Today, the average annual premium for full coverage is more than $2,500, up from more than $1,700 just a few years ago. There are a lot of reasons for this—including the high price of cars, supply chain issues, and the rising frequency and severity of crashes—but no matter how y…
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