Hello, friends!
In June I had the opportunity to attend Velo-city, an annual cycling summit hosted by the European Cyclists' Federation that brings together elected officials, city planners, advocates, industry representatives, academics and regular bike-curious citizens. It was an inspiring event that left me — and, as you'll hear in this bonus episode, everyone else — inspired and rejuvenated.
2024-08-20 10:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Hello Patreon supporters!
We're hoping you'll help us with an idea we have for an upcoming bonus episode, inspired by a listener's recent email:
Hello friends!!
Idea for an episode: I have a friend here in [CITY REDACTED] who is constantly dating lots of men and convincing them fairly immediately - like first or second date - to buy a bike and ride public transit. I feel like she is single handedly helping large swaths of our male population to...
2024-08-08 18:29:56 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello all!
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, Washington. Holden is a 26-year-old originally from Dallas, Texas, and he used his odyssey to fundraise for the organization America Walks, as well as to raise awareness about active transportation and meet with fellow-minded advocates along the way. As he says, “Advocacy is bui...
Hello Patreon supporters!
"Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles."
That quote is the core philosophy of a man named John Forester, the father of vehicular cycling. Forester, who died in 2020, was a major figure in the the world of cycling advocacy and transportation policy, and his influence shaped street design and bicycle safety in the United States for decades. In fact, even with all the progress made over the past ten...
2024-07-09 10:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostHappy summer, everyone!
We have a quick episode to kick things off for July. Last month I was in Ghent at the Velo-city Conference, an annual gathering of transportation officials, planners, and advocates, all focused on growing cycling as a form of regular transportation. Ghent has done a lot to curb car traffic in the center of the city and I'll have more from my trip — and more about Velo-city — in futu...
2024-07-02 10:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostHello!
Because it has the word “engineering” right in there, the field of traffic engineering is something most people assume is governed by scientific studies 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 Transportation System, Wes Marshall,...
2024-06-25 10:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostHello!
If you've heard our emergency episode on New York Governor Kathy Hochul's congestion pricing flip-flop, you know it's been a wild week. There will surely be more news to come, but we now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
We turn our attention to the other side of the pond, where the advocacy group London Cyclin...
2024-06-11 10:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostHi everyone!
By now, many of you have heard about New York 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, jeopardizing what was set to be a major funding source for transit and a revolutionary plan to reduce traffic in a way never seen bef...
2024-06-07 10:01:03 +0000 UTC View PostHello!
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. While most of these initiatives have failed, one of these states successfully banned bus wraps, but not because bus wraps make it harder to see out of bus windows.
What is going on? We take a look ...
2024-05-28 10:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostHello, friends of The War on Cars!
It's been a long time since we held a listener meetup, but with summer upon us we decided it's finally time for another one.
Sorta late notice, but please join the hosts of The War on Cars and friends on Saturday, June 1st starting at 3 PM on the Vanderbilt Avenue Open Street in Brooklyn's Prospect Heights. We'll meet close to the corner of Vanderbilt A...
2024-05-24 19:52:01 +0000 UTC View PostHello Patreoners!
Have we got a fun — and long — episode for you.
It's May! Bike Month! A time of glorious weather in most of North America and the northern hemisphere. But let's talk about WINTER!
Back in February, we attended the Winter Cycling Congress in Edmonton, Alberta at the invitation of Ed...
2024-05-21 10:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostHello, Patreoners!
As you know all too well, 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 Anna Letitia Zivarts, herself a low-vision nondriver and a longtime activist for bett...
2024-05-07 10:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello, Patreon friends:
We were getting ready to record our "Cybertrash" episode with Ed Niedermeyer last month when Ed happened to bring to our attention this "deeply weird" ten minute-long ext...
Dear Patreonistas:
On the one hand, you don't want to give Elon Musk any more attention. After all, it's the thing he craves most. On the other hand, the world's only podcast dedicated to counter-programming car culture bears a heavy responsibility. We must discuss the absolute piece of trash that is the Tesla Cybertruck. To help us fulfill our grave obligation we invited journalist Ed Niedermeyer 2024-04-16 09:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello, Dear Patreon enlistees!
Journalist Megan Kimble's new book is out today! The first stop on her media tour? It's The War on Cars (Sorry, Fresh Air). We have had Megan on our "must get" list for a few years now. Well, we got her and had a great conversation about what is arguably the biggest battle currently underway in the so-called war on cars. Hope you enjoy the ad-free episode and thanks so much for your support. We really appreciate it. Let us know what you think in the comm...
Hello, friends of The War on Cars!
For our latest episode, we take a look at something we've never covered on the podcast before: car insurance in the United States and why it's too cheap.
We can hear the response of all the drivers out there. "Too cheap? You gotta be kidding me. I've never paid more for car insurance." That's very true. 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 ...
2024-03-19 10:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostHello!
Last week we dropped the full video of our live show at Caveat just for Patreon supporters. This week we're releasing an edited audio version into our podcast feed for folks who want the live show in their ears instead of in their eyes. We hope you enjoy it. As always, Patreon supporters get an ad-free version of the episode.
If you missed our live show, we think you'll love...
2024-03-05 11:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostHello, friends of The War on Cars!
Thank you to everyone who came to see our live show at Caveat on January 31st. We had a great time chatting with our guest, the voice of the New York City subways, Bernie Wagenblast. The show also featured a surprise appearance from 2024-02-27 11:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello, friends of The War on Cars!
As promised, here's a quick Patreon bonus episode in which we continue the Super Bowl conversation we began on episode 120. If you haven't heard that one, go back and take a listen!
In this bonus, we discuss two ads. One is a bit old but recently resurfaced and made the rounds on social media. It's 2024-02-15 11:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello, good people of Patreon!
it's time for our annual Super Bowl roundup episode!
This has become a tradition for us and it's always a fun one to produce and record. It usually takes about a week to get this one out, but thanks to an early recording session on Monday and some heroic work by our editor Yessenia Moreno we are able to release episode CXX (see what we did there?) with the Big Game still fresh in everyone's minds.
2024-02-14 11:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, Patreoners!
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 citie...
2024-02-06 11:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostHello, Patreoners!
If you missed out on getting in-person tickets to our live show at Caveat in New York tonight or don't live anywhere near New York or just prefer staying at home, you can still watch the show via livestream.
Livestream tickets are available here.
2024-01-31 17:15:28 +0000 UTC
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Hello, Patreon friends:
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 episod...
2024-01-30 10:30:00 +0000 UTC View PostHello, Patreon Friends:
I've been following Baruch Herzfeld and the development of his start-up company, PopWheels since last May. This episode of The War on Cars is the result of more than a half dozen interviews with Baruch and the Bangladeshi delivery workers who are using PopWheels' e-bike battery-swapping system. Going in to this project, I thought I was going be nerding out on electric bikes, battery technology, and the delivery app business. Instead, I got a crash course on...
2024-01-16 10:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostHello, friends of The War on Cars!
Our live show at Caveat on January 31st is sold out, with the majority of those tickets purchased early by Patreon supporters. We're so grateful to all of you for the positive response. Next year we'll have to do more nights or find a bigger venue... hopefully with valet bike parking.
If you missed out or simply can't make it anyway because you don't live in New York or just aren't doing indoor stuff right now — which we totally understand — ...
2024-01-10 23:51:24 +0000 UTC View PostHappy New Year to our Patreon crew! We are so excited for the months ahead. It's a busy time here at The War on Cars headquarters!
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, The Atlantic and Fast Company, where he relentlessly covers road safety, climate change, and the future of micromobility
2024-01-02 11:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Hello!
Last month we told you our origin stories. Everything from early driving lessons to our experience living in car-dependent places has informed our journey to becoming radicalized, so to speak, into The War on Cars.
Now it's your turn! We put out the call for listener origin stories, and — wow! — did you deliver. We heard from people all over the world about how they began to see ...
2023-12-26 11:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostHello, friends!
Just in time for Christmas, here's a extra bonus episode all about one of our favorite holiday traditions: the annual release of the Hess Truck.
Since 1964, the Hess Corporation has released a toy truck for the holiday season, something that’s highly anticipated by children and collectors alike. Models have included gas tankers, fire trucks, motorcycles, RVs, race cars,...
2023-12-21 11:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostEnd-of-year greetings, Patreoners!
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...
2023-12-19 11:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostHello!
British politics have always been interesting, but the last few months have been a wild ride as far as transportation, traffic safety and climate are concerned. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been on a tear about ending what he calls "the war on motorists," launching a full-scale culture and policy war to push back against sensible policies meant to protect people, the British economy and the planet.
2023-12-05 11:01:00 +0000 UTC
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