Autonomous vehicle giant Waymo is starting to experiment with subscription packages for teens — including those too young to drive. But as America's kids gain high-tech motorized independence, what will they lose in exchange? Today on the Brake, host Kea Wilson is going solo for an informal chat about the debate over driverless cars as a youth mobility solution, how autonomous vehicles could even further isolate young people from their communities, and the dangers of relying on corporations for ...
Jul 15, 2025•21 min
We’ve all heard the argument that the soul of America’s economy is based on how much we all love to drive. But does the data support the narrative that cars connect us to far-flung opportunities to make and spend more money — or has our country's car-powered productivity revolution actually stalled out? Today on The Brake, we're talking to Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute about his new paper on the “mobility-productivity paradox”, and why so many economic indicators actuall...
Jul 01, 2025•23 min
As the Baby Boomer set ages out of driving, are American cities ready to support their changing transportation needs — and what policies should they be writing right now to help seniors and their neighbors weather the silver tsunami? Today, we're posting an extended audio version of our earlier conversation with the fantastic author, attorney, and law professor Greg Shill about his contributions to the new book “ Law and the 100 Year Life” . And in it, we dig into thorny questions about whether ...
Jun 17, 2025•39 min
One in five U.S. college students are also parents with children of their own — and in many cases, a single unexpected expense can be enough to force them to drop out before they earn their degrees. And too often, that emergency comes in the form of a transportation challenge like a cancelled bus route or a flat tire that keeps them from ever reaching the classroom. In honor of Mother's Day and Father's Day on The Brake, we're talking to Abigail Seldin of Scholarship America about the 3.8 millio...
May 22, 2025•21 min
Are Americans really more "car-brained" than their peers in the UK or the Netherlands — and if they are, what can make us change? The Brake is back from its spring hiatus with the return of two of our all-time favorite guests: researchers Ian Walker and Marco te Brömmelstroet, who teamed up for a new paper about how "motonormativity" manifests across their respective nations and the US. And along the way, they learned some fascinating insights about where our autocentric attitudes come from in a...
May 06, 2025•29 min
How does our popular media normalize dangerous behavior on our roads — and does it even help create it? Today on The Brake, we're talking about the role of culture in driving our road violence crisis, including car ads that make reckless driving seem like it never has deadly consequences, action movies, video games, and even social media trends. And my guest today, documentarian and journalist Myron Levin, wrapped all of that into a really fascinating, full length documentary that you can watch ...
Mar 25, 2025•24 min
Decades of research prove that highways tear apart the physical fabric of our cities, segregating neighborhoods by race and income and making it harder for anyone outside a car to access the jobs, services and communities they rely on — at least if those things happen to be located on the other side of a dangerous road. But what impact do highways have on the invisible social fabric of our places — and does the internet provide a bridge between these disconnected communities, or only a digital m...
Mar 11, 2025•23 min
Cities across America have been trying — and mostly failing — to achieve Vision Zero for more than a decade. But is it really time to trade the goal of ending road deaths and serious injuries for the aim of reducing them 30 percent by 2030? And would we be better positioned to eliminate the other 70 percent of fatalities if we made that strategic shift, or not? Today on the Brake, we sit down with the presdient of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, David Harkey, to talk about his organi...
Feb 25, 2025•38 min
What’s a little bigger than a bike, a lot smaller than a car, and might be the tool you didn’t know you needed to get a big haul home from the grocery store two miles away in the pouring rain? The answer is actually an entire category of vehicles that aren't common on U.S. roads — but with the right mix of policy, code, and infrastructure reform, we could see a lot more of them. Today on the Brake, we sit down with Karina Ricks of CityFi and Benjie De La Peña of the Shared Use Mobility Center to...
Feb 11, 2025•30 min
What if there were a single document that told every U.S. resident exactly how safe their state is — or isn't— for pedestrians, bicyclists, and other vulnerable road users, as well as what that state is doing to save lives ? Turns out there is: the Vulnerable Road User Safety Assessment, or VRUSA. And since the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, every DOT in the U.S. has been legally required to write one – even if they don't always do it in ways that are particularly helpful to trans...
Jan 29, 2025•25 min•Season 3Ep. 2
If you’ve been following Streetsblog for a while, you might have heard of famed planner/engineer/all-around transportation superstar Roger Millar, not least for his recent leadership as the head of the Washington state DOT. But you might not have heard that, while at WashDOT, Millar and his team did something quietly radical: they challenged every decision maker in their state to confront the role of land use in saving lives in our roads, by changing the very framework on which the state’s Visio...
Jan 14, 2025•25 min•Season 3Ep. 1
More than a decade ago, Kate Gallego had a seizure that temporarily cost her the ability to drive – and opened her eyes to the difficulty of getting around her city of Phoenix, Arizona without a car. Now, in her third term as Phoenix's mayor, she's pushed for some of the most aggressive multimodal transportaiton investments in the city's history, including a new shade plan to tackle the impact of the community's notoriously sweltering heat on people who walk, roll, orwait for a ride. On this epi...
Dec 17, 2024•23 min
Across America, a new class of developers are building car-free neighborhoods from scratch — or at least, they're building places where residents don't need to drive quite as much as their suburban neighbors. But can these greenfield developments really serve as a model for communities across America, or will they always be a rare and coveted commodity for those who can afford the luxury of living at human scale? Today on the Brake, we sit down with Scott Snodgrass of Meristem Communities , whos...
Dec 10, 2024•36 min
Tirana, Albania has gained international recognition for putting kids first on the road — especially their award-winning "School Streets," where cars are either banned or significantly limited from driving near learning centers and play spaces for kids are built instead. As the Balkan city grows its bike network, though, its mayor says it's still reckoning with a post-communist culture that sees cars as an aspirational symbol of success. And he has some fascinating thoughts about what it takes t...
Nov 26, 2024•29 min
Quelimane, Mozambique might not be the first city that comes to an American's mind when she thinks of an active transportation paradise. With 40 percent of trips taken on foot and 35 percent in the saddle , though, the east African city has already been ranked as the most walkable city on Earth — and now, it's setting its sights on becoming an international model for how to support people who walk and roll through visionary leadership and policy. This week on The Brake, we continue our dispatche...
Nov 12, 2024•22 min
Highways and other federal transportation investments have destroyed neighborhoods of color across America, even as the current presidential administration attempts to heal those wounds through grants like the Reconnecting Communities Program. But what is it like to actually be a local leader fighting to win that money — especially when the sheer volume of disconnected communities makes the competition dauntingly steep? On this episode of The Brake —and our first dispatch from Bloomberg Citylab ...
Oct 29, 2024•21 min
Over the past few weeks, U.S. news has been flooded with images of hurricane disaster: endless traffic jams full of evacuees, communities destroyed by deadly winds, and residents struggling to access the resources they need to survive while multiple feet of water stand in the streets. But how has car dependency impacted the course of these unthinkable events — and how can addressing it make us more resilient to whatever climate change throws at us next? On today’s episode of the Brake, we’re sit...
Oct 15, 2024•21 min
Cities that have done the work to attract a lot of cyclists aren't just safe for people on two wheels — they're safer for drivers, pedestrians, and everyone else on the road, too. But why, exactly, is that true, and how can we use that insight to sell bike-friendly infrastructure and policy to a public that barely rides at all? On this episode of The Brake, we're back with Nick Ferenchak and Wes Marshall, who co-authored a new study of seven mid-sized cities that have gotten a lot of their resid...
Oct 01, 2024•24 min
Our sister podcast, Talking Headways is about to hit its 500th episode. But how did host Jeff Wood accomplish that massive milestone, and how does he keep finding all these powerful stories about how our cities work? On today's episode of The Brake, our host Kea Wilson sits down for a long conversation with Wood himself to talk about how he's grown this incredible audio archive of interviews, how Streetsblog got lucky enough to host it, and how he spends his time when he's not behind the mic. An...
Sep 17, 2024•33 min
"Reclaiming public space" isnt just about turning vacant lots into parks — or bulldozing homes for highways. And in a recent report, the Regional Plan Association of the tri-state area argues that the planning profession needs a new approach towards repurposing our land and giving residents more "psychological ownership" over their communities. Check out RPA's recent case studies of how four U.S. cities are pushing the concept of "reclaiming public space" to new heights, then listen in to our co...
Sep 03, 2024•20 min
A lot of ink has been spilled on what autonomous vehicles could mean for America, especially if the tech-industry fantasy of a 100% driverless future somehow comes true. But my guest today argues that policymakers need to dig a lot deeper if they want to anticipate the potential side effects of the AV revolution — especially when it comes to public health and equity. In his new paper, "Equity issues ssociated with the widespread implementation of autonomous vehicles," Dr. Andrew Dannenberg of th...
Aug 20, 2024•25 min
When a fatal car crash happens, authorities act fast to stablize the victims, clear the road, and get traffic moving again like nothing ever happened. But what if, instead, they treated those streets as the site of a catastrophic transportation failure — and took immediate action to prevent the worst from happening again? On this episode of The Brake, we spoke to Kevin Krizek and Tila Duhaime, who are hoping U.S. cities will try a radical new approach to post-crash response they're calling " Eme...
Aug 06, 2024•22 min
"Project 2025" purports to be a blueprint for an ultra-conservative federal government should Trump win a second term as president in November. But what does that document actually say about the issues that sustainable transportation advocates care about most — and does either party really understand our issues? On this episode of 'The Brake', we sat down with Transportation for America 's Beth Osborne to chat through some of the standout passages of Project 2025 and break down what it would rea...
Jul 23, 2024•27 min
Enrique Peñalosa Londoño has an international reputation for using the humble bus, bikeway, sidewalk and park to make cities more equitable, starting with his game-changing two terms as the mayor of Bogotá, Colombia. And in his new book, Equality and the City: Urban Innovations for All Citizens, he unpacks how those tools can transform communities into advanced cities where the transportation is an equalizer rather than a divider. Tune into this guest episode from Scott Shepard of the #CitiesFir...
Jul 02, 2024•40 min
Who, exactly is designing America's notriously deadly road network — and how on earth do they keep getting away with it? On today's episode of The Brake, we’re talking to traffic engineer, academic and now author, Wes Marshall, whose new book — “Killed by a Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion that Science Underlies Our Transportation System” — unpacks the mountain of wildly outdated, severely limited, and often downright non-existent research that underlies so much of our national road des...
Jun 18, 2024•33 min
The Dutch are known around the world as global leaders in sustainable transportation. But as excellent as they are at designing cities to optimize the mobility experience, what about all the other reasons residents might move through their communities — and what other questions should the Netherlands and America be asking about what public space is really for? Those questions are at the heart of the new Dutch book “Movement: How to Take Back Our Streets and Transform our Lives,” which is now out...
Jun 04, 2024•26 min
Most American communities don’t even bother to count what percentage of the population can't legally drive. In the handful of states that have tried, though, the answer has been around 30 percent – which is just enough to create a real movement for change, if we'd all just band together On today’s episode of The Brake, we're bringing you an extended audio version of our conversation with author Anna Zivarts, who has been quietly building that movement of non-drivers through her work with groups ...
May 21, 2024•27 min
Across the country, grassroots advocates are fighting a David-and-Goliath-style battle against massive, powerful departments of transportation who are attempting to widen highways in their neighborhoods. And in her new book, City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America’s Highways , author Megan Kimble introduces us to the many Davids who are taking on one of the biggest Goliaths of all: the Texas Department of Transportation. In this extended audio version of our recent int...
May 07, 2024•27 min
Across the country right now, cities and transit agencies are taking steps to address violence on their systems — particularly against the people who work to keep our buses and trains running, clean, and safe for everyone to ride. But what are the root causes of that violence — and are strategies like deploying armed police actually addressing them? On today's episode of The Brake, we speak to Urban Institute Senior Research Associate Lindiwe Rennert about her research into how violence against ...
Apr 23, 2024•23 min
Is it possible to build streets that are slow enough to keep vulnerable road users safe and lightning fast when an emergency service vehicle needs to reach a person in need? That's been a hot topic of debate among U.S. sustainable transportation advocates lately — and it's also the subject of a fascinating new research paper from the Dutch Cycling Embassy. In this episode of The Brake, we sit down with study co-authors Shelley Bontje and Chris Bruntlett to unpack how the Netherlands and other co...
Apr 09, 2024•22 min
