Episode description

While every economic sector in America has been upended by the coronavirus, few have been hit as hard as the transit and food service industries. It's not so easy to hop on a bus or train when there's a need for increased sanitation and social distancing. It’s equally as difficult to imagine sitting down in a cafe next to some strangers and ordering a nice salade niçoise as servers buzz around the dining room. As the country grows more desperate to return to something approaching normalcy, experiences like riding a bus, hailing an Uber, and dining out will soon look very different, with restaurant tables spilling into the roads, and the roads themselves closed to cars.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED transportation writer Aarian Marshall joins us to talk about how the coronavirus is poised to change the design of city life.

Show Notes: 

Read Aarian’s story about how cities are embracing outdoor spaces here. Catch up with Elon Musk’s Tesla tweetstorm here. Read more from WIRED about the state of transportation here. Follow all of our coronavirus coverage here.

Recommendations: 

Aaarian recommends buying subscriptions to some print magazines so you’re not just staring at a screen all the time. Lauren recommends Billions on Showtime. Mike recommends Questlove Quarantine Live From the Qibbutz on YouTube.

Aarian Marshall can be found on Twitter @AarianMarshall. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our executive producer is Alex Kapelman (@alexkapelman). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

If you have feedback about the show, or just want to enter to win a $50 gift card, take our brief listener survey here.