The War on Cars

Do people really like our all-enveloping autocentric system quite as much as everyone keeps saying they do? What kind of communities would they live in if given the choice? The answers, as a new study...

We are back home in Brooklyn but we can't stop talking about everything we saw out on the road on our Life After Cars book tour. Listen for our takes on the second leg of our trip, which took us from ...

This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, plus ad-free versions of regular episodes, merch discounts, presale tickets to live sh...

Should the bus be free? That's the question everyone following the New York City mayoral race is asking, with Democratic primary winner Zohran Mamdani promising to focus on fast, free buses if he's el...

This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, plus ad-free versions of regular episodes, merch discounts, pre-sale tickets to live s...

Why have some cities become places where it's easy to hop on a bike for daily transportation needs while others have languished or even been left behind? Is there some sort of magical combination of f...

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 thou...

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… whi...

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 star...

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 learne...

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 t...

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...

In his groundbreaking book, Traffication: How Cars Destroy Nature and What We Can Do About It, scientist and researcher Paul Donald synthesizes dozens of studies to help us understand what cars and ro...

This is a special presentation of the first episode of Freeway Exit, a six-part series produced by award-winning reporter Andrew Bowen of KPBS Public Media in San Diego, California. Freeway Exit revea...

It's our annual Super Bowl roundup, where we analyze the car ads that ran during the Big Game and ask what they say about driving and, more importantly, U.S. culture. This year's ads included Will Fe...

It's been hard to escape the ongoing disaster that is Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter. But anyone who has been paying attention to Musk's understanding of transportation (or lack thereof) as well as ...

In the spring of 2021, War on Cars co-host Aaron Naparstek started noticing lots of big loud muscle cars rumbling around New York City emblazoned with Instagram accounts. He began following cars on so...

Summer is over, but honking season is just getting started. After a short delay — due to circumstances described in this episode — The War on Cars is back to celebrate our fourth anniversary and descr...

***This is a preview of a bonus episode for our Patreon supporters. Become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars for ad-free access to this and all our exclusive content. And we'll send you stickers!...

Traffic fatalities in the U.S. are at a 16-year high. One reason? Driver distraction. Today's automobiles are loaded with an almost cinematic level of screens, featuring apps and infotainment systems ...

According to Jody Rosen, a contributing writer for The New York Times, we live on a bicycle planet. Across the world, more people use bicycles — for transportation, recreation, and their livelihood — ...

From the joy of the "Just a Minute" campaign in San Francisco to the members of a colorfully named subreddit creating a digital parking lot, there's a lot of news in The War on Cars. We hear from list...

Alex Pareene, a contributing editor to The New Republic and the author of The AP (Alex Pareene) Newsletter, joins the podcast to talk about his recent run of stories on cars, parking and the competiti...

In 2019, Melissa and Chris Bruntlett and their two children moved from Vancouver to the small city of Delft in the Netherlands. The experience of transitioning to and living in a place that puts peopl...

Jason Slaughter is the creator of Not Just Bikes, the wildly popular YouTube channel that covers urban design and daily living in the Netherlands. Jason's videos are informative and entertaining, and ...

What does bikelash have in common with moral panics? Has Paris really descended into anarchy because of all the cyclists? Are e-bikes and scooters the biggest threats to pedestrians on the mean street...

We're vaxxed and we're back. In this very special reunion episode, Sarah, Doug and Aaron return to the studio for the first time in fifteen months. Fifteen months! The COVID-19 pandemic has been a wil...

Under the leadership of Mayor Anne Hidalgo, the city of Paris has transformed itself, turning streets that were once clogged with cars into places for people on bikes and on foot. In response to the p...

It's often said that Americans have a "love affair" with cars and driving. Where did this oddly specific expression come from? Most people probably assume it was something that developed organically, ...

"I wrote this book to make you mad." So declares British writer and artist Woodrow Phoenix in the afterward of his new graphic novel Crash Course. Subtitled, "If You Want To Get Away With Murder, Buy ...

From his 1989 book The End of Nature, which was the first to explain global warming to a general audience, to co-founding the climate-change activism group 350.org, there are few people with more exp...

In this, our second episode of the COVID-19 era, we hear from listeners around the globe about how their cities look and feel. Is it safe to ride transit? How does it feel to walk through towns and ci...

In Part 1 of "The Problem With Public Meetings" we took you inside a difficult community meeting in Fort Greene, Brooklyn and urged compassion and understanding for neighbors who aren't quite yet on b...

In this TWOC Extra, we present co-host Doug Gordon's full interview with Ray Magliozzi of "Car Talk," conducted in February 2019 at the WBUR studios in Boston and previously available only to Patreon ...

Once a year, the world descends on Manhattan for the New York International Auto Show, an extravagant, multimillion-dollar celebration of all things car. From the most "sinister" Dodge Challenger to a...

What if you could get around quickly and reliably in a state-of-the-art vehicle that you didn't have to drive, park, fuel, or insure? No, it's not an Uber or a self-driving car... it's the bus! In thi...

Which is more destructive? Cars or guns? A recent study showed that guns are now the second-leading killer of children in the U.S. But what does it say about our culture that the press seemed to gloss...

When is a car not a car? When it's a source of solace and comfort, a curbside living room and a personal aesthetic statement. This episode is brought to you "live" from the interior of a 1987 Cadillac...