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PODCAST

The War on Cars

The War on Cars, LLC

The War on Cars brings you news, commentary and stories about the worldwide battle to undo a century"s worth of damage wrought by the automobile.

society & culture news commentary

All Episodes

04:00

TEASER: Super Bowl Extra

The War on Cars ·

2024/02/15

***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 this bonus episode, we continue the conversation we had in Episode 120 about the car ads from Super Bowl LVIII. These two didn't air during the big game, but one is a bit on an antidote to the excess of the typical U.S. automobile commercial while the other is part of a series that ran during NFL postseason games and lots of other

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41:02

Super Bowl LVIII Roundup

The War on Cars ·

2024/02/14

In what’s become an annual tradition, we take a critical look at the car ads that aired during the Super Bowl and consider what they say about driving, culture, consumerism, and the United States… which is all the same thing, right? The big story this year is not so much which car companies chose to spend $7 million for 30 seconds of air time but which chose not to and why. (There were zero ads from the Big Three U.S. automakers; that’s the first time that’s happened in 23 years.) Still, there were

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26:03

Should SUV Ads Be Banned?

The War on Cars ·

2024/02/06

Did you ever see a car advertisement that you thought was so ridiculously irresponsible it should be banned? Well, the people at Adfree Cities, an advocacy group based in the United Kingdom, did, and they decided to do something about it. They went up against Toyota over an ad for the Toyota Hilux SUV that shows drivers ripping through sensitive natural areas and cities—and they won, getting the ad taken off the airwaves and the streets. We talked with two members of the organization, Veronica

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11:42

TEASER: Delivering the Goods with Shawon and Fokhrul

The War on Cars ·

2024/01/30

This is a preview of a special bonus episode for Patreon supporters of The War on Cars! In the last episode of the podcast we spent some time with Baruch, Shawon, and their battery-swapping startup company, PopWheels. When I started working on that episode, I figured I was going to learn a lot about e-bikes, batteries, and the delivery app business. And I did. But over the course of more than a half dozen interviews and conversations between May and December 2023, I also learned a lot about

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37:38

The Future of Transportation Has Arrived With Your...

The War on Cars ·

2024/01/16

Baruch Herzfeld is the CEO and co-founder of PopWheels, where he is working to develop New York City’s first e-bike battery-swapping network. PopWheels aims to solve the growing problem of e-bike battery fires. The company believes that giving e-mobility users a quick, convenient, and safe way to recharge their batteries is absolutely essential to pushing gas-burning cars and trucks out of cities once and for all. But Baruch’s really big idea is this: He is betting that the light, clean, electric

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48:50

Fixing America's Car Culture with David Zipper

The War on Cars ·

2024/01/02

Happy New Year! We’re kicking off 2024 by bringing you our conversation with David Zipper, one of the hardest-working analysts on the transportation scene today. You may be familiar with David from his writing at Bloomberg CityLab, Slate and Fast Company, where he relentlessly covers road safety, climate change, and the future of micromobility. We talked with David about the excesses of the auto industry, our road fatality crisis, the absurd way speed limits are determined on American streets, and

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05:27

TEASER: Listener Origin Stories

The War on Cars ·

2023/12/26

Last month the three hosts told their origin stories, or how they first became aware of the problems associated with cars and automobile dependency. Our stories included everything from lessons learned during early driving lessons to our individual experiences living in car-dependent places. The response to that episode was so great that we put out the call to our Patreon supporters to tell us their origin stories. We heard from people from all over the world — including a few friends and former

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02:07

TEASER: Hess for the Holidays

The War on Cars ·

2023/12/21

Since 1964, the Hess Corporation has released a toy truck for the holiday season, an annual tradition that’s highly anticipated by children and collectors alike. Models have included gas tankers, fire trucks, motorcycles, RVs, race cars, and even a Space Shuttle, almost all in the fossil fuel company’s iconic green-and-white color scheme. But this year, perhaps reflecting the times, the Hess Corporation has released a Police Truck and Cruiser, “a specialized law enforcement response team that will

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43:17

Road Ecology with Ben Goldfarb

The War on Cars ·

2023/12/19

In his new book, Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping The Future of Our Planet, independent conservation journalist Ben Goldfarb writes about how roads and cars are wreaking havoc on nature across the globe. He reports back about the people trying to save everything from butterflies to deer to wallabies to salamanders from the destructive power of motordom. Plus, he helps us analyze a couple of egregious ads that show how humans use roads to assert our dominion over the natural world…to our own

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48:44

What the Hell is Happening In the UK?

The War on Cars ·

2023/12/05

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has declared it’s time to end what he calls “the war on motorists.” First, the Conservative Party leader announced he was delaying the UK’s commitment to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars. He followed that with what he called his “plan for motorists,” which would severely restrict local efforts to implement low-traffic neighborhoods, 20 mph speed limits, bus-only lanes, and other policies intended to benefit people walking, cycling, and taking transit. Finally,

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05:38

TEASER: Origin Stories

The War on Cars ·

2023/11/28

Have you ever found yourself wondering, how did Aaron, Doug and Sarah get mobilized into the war on cars? What made them this way? If so, you’re in luck. In this bonus episode, exclusively for Patreon supporters, we dive deep into our own pasts and reveal how our personal experiences with cars drove us to activism, research, writing…and ultimately, The War on Cars podcast as you know it today. You’ll learn how Doug dealt with a soul-crushing commute in Atlanta and how Sarah drove recklessly on the

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33:32

John Bauters, America's Bike Mayor

The War on Cars ·

2023/11/07

Since he was elected mayor in 2020, John Bauters has gained an international reputation for his work to transform transportation and housing in the tiny city of Emeryville, which is wedged between Oakland and Berkeley on the shores of San Francisco Bay. Emeryville, population 13,000, is only one square mile in area. But it’s home to some big employers, including Pixar, and several big box stores. It also has I-80 blasting through it, and it is a major hub for Amtrak, regional rail, and freight rail

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50:49

Dark PR with Grant Ennis

The War on Cars ·

2023/10/24

In his new book, Dark PR: How Corporate Disinformation Harms Our Health and the Environment, Grant Ennis — a lecturer at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia — identifies the "nine devious frames" that corporations such as automobile manufacturers and road builders use to advance their interests, manipulate the public and maintain a status quo that harms human health and the environment. Dark PR is a thought-provoking book that shines a light on the tactics used by major industries to lock in

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42:11

Unintended Consequences with Steven Johnson

The War on Cars ·

2023/10/10

This year, 2023, marks the hundredth anniversary since chemical engineer Thomas Midgley, Jr. made the discoveries that led to the invention of leaded gasoline. Of all the many harms that the automobile has caused the environment and humanity over the last century, the effects of leaded gasoline have to be pretty close to the top of the list. Science and industry were well aware of the dangers of lead in the 1920s. But adding small amounts of it to motor fuel made internal combustion engines work

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08:10

TEASER: Celebrating Your Wins!

The War on Cars ·

2023/10/03

In this bonus episode just for Patreon supporters of The War on Cars, we do a quick news roundup before getting to the thing that matters most: WINNING. Last month we reached out to our liteners and asked them to send us their wins, from policy and infrastructure victories to cultural changes they helped usher in, even at just the individual level. Let's face it: it's a tough world out there so celebrating victories big and small is really important. Thanks to all of you, we are making progress in

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38:44

Why Congestion Pricing Matters with Diana Lind

The War on Cars ·

2023/09/19

After 16 years of slogging its way through municipal, state and federal government and every imaginable form of public process, congestion pricing is finally on its way to New York City. If all goes as planned, then anyone who wants to cram a car or truck into Lower Manhattan south of 60th Street is going to have to pay somewhere between $9 and $23 per day starting next spring. And all of that money will go toward supporting and improving New York’s transit system. There are still lots of details to

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08:59

TEASER: Coach Balto's Bike Bus Lessons

The War on Cars ·

2023/09/12

While working on Episode 110, Back to School with the Bike Bus, we spoke with Sam Balto, a phys ed teacher in Portland, Oregon, who goes by @CoachBalto and who's become one of the most visible advocates in the global movement for active transportation for kids. We used some of his comments in that episode, but our conversation was so juicy we knew we wanted to share it in full. Sam does a great job of explaining why bike buses are so much fun and so good for kids, and why you might find yourself

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20:54

Back to School with the Bike Bus

The War on Cars ·

2023/09/05

If you’ve never heard of a bike bus—or a bicibús, as it’s known in the Catalonian capital of Barcelona—it’s a beautifully simple idea. Kids and parents ride their bikes to school along a pre-planned route, picking up classmates along the way, just the way a school bus would. Except because it’s bikes, it’s way, way more fun. Sarah and Doug rode along with bike buses in Barcelona and suburban Montclair, New Jersey, to see how it works, and we talked with organizer Sam Balto in Portland, Oregon, to

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44:30

Inclusive Transportation with Veronica O. Davis

The War on Cars ·

2023/08/22

In her new book, Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities, Veronica O. Davis — the Director of Transportation and Drainage Operations for the city of Houston, Texas — takes a hard look at the ways in which planning a world for cars has harmed communities and how that affects anyone working to change things today. How do you repair a system that continues to divide communities? In a world where "equity" can sometimes just be a buzzword, what does equity truly look like

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10:49

TEASER: Chaos in the Bike Lane with Aaron Gordon

The War on Cars ·

2023/08/08

The rising problem of mopeds and motorcycles in New York City bike lanes is impossible to ignore but the solutions are anything but simple. Recently, journalist and friend of the podcast Aaron Gordon wrote an essay for his newsletter titled "Biking in New York City Has Gotten Worse," in which he laments the change that's happened in recent years of larger and faster motorized vehicles using the city's bike lanes. We're not talking pedal-assist e-bikes and cargo bikes or even the Arrow e-bikes that

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