The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast

It's easy to jump to conclusions about why so many drivers continuosly break speed limits, whether you assume they just can't help it or just don't care about anyone but themselves. A recent study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, though, finds that there are actually five different types of speeders on our roads — and until we understand each group's unique psychology, we won't be able to slow any of them down. On this episode of The Brake, we sat down with study author Rebecca Steinbach to introduce us to these five motorists, and dig into her deep dive-into the motivations, attitudes, and unconsicous reasons why so many people hit the gas they know they shouldn't. And then they touch on what it might take to slow those speeders down, and why one-size-fits-all solutions will always fail.

Like the interstate system before it, a network of massive, hyper-scale AI data centers is cropping up across America. And much like highways, they're spewing air, water, and noise pollution across our communities, unleashing more surveillance tech and police on our sidewalks, and erasing the climate gains of every bike or a bus trip we take — all for the supposed "benefit" of communities that many advocates doubt. Today, The Brake is back from hiatus with Saul Levin, veteran transit advocate and host of one of our favorite new podcasts, The Hum, where he interviews the leading voices in the data center resistance movement. And along the way, he helps us understand not just why these two types of fossil fuel infrastructure have so much in common, but how the same playbook can help defeat them both — especially if we band together.

A sidewalk isn't just a strip of asphalt; it's a place where countless laws collide, whether they're governing our movement, our safety, our right to free speech, our economy, or even just who's responsible for shoveling after a snow storm. But most communities don't have a single agency that manages all these competing concerns — and maybe it's time they create one. Today on The Brake, we interview sidewalk law expert Michael Pollack about his new book "Sidewalk Nation: The Life and Law of America's Most Overlooked Resource." And in that book, he untangles the dense web of policies that shape our pedestrian spaces, which might just change the way you look at sidewalks forever.

Affordability is the buzzword in American politics — and when it comes to transportation affordability, the policies that would give the most families the most immediate relief would also do the most to address the climate crisis. So why aren't things like fast, free buses, better connected sidewalks, and quick-build bike lanes sitting front and center of every politician's platform? And if they were, could it help climate champions across the country finally take power? Today on The Brake, we speak to Emmett Hopkins, transportation policy manager for the Climate and Community Institute, and one of the authors of a new report called Stop Greed, Build Green. Hopkins breaks down an agenda that could help save the planet and end the income inequality crisis — and why "Green Economic Populism" is so different than the predatory breed of populism that's claimed Washington right now, or the flawed "Bidenomic" approach that proceeded it.

Robotaxis from companies like Waymo are already rolling onto roads across America, whehter or not cities are ready for them. How can cities take back their power and put shared autonomous vehicles in their proper place, understand what impact they're having on local transportation goals, and avoid amplifying some of the worst impacts of old-school car dependency? Today on The Brake, we're talking to Josh Naramore of the National Association of City Transportation Officials, which released a new report on how cities can meet the robotaxi revolution, and do it on their terms. And if they do it right, they can do it without losing momentum on building livable streets for people outside cars, too.

Even before the Trump administration and the current congress started rescinding federal grants left and right, it was hard to get major sustainable transportation projects across the finish line in America. That's why one livable streets legend is stepping up to help push those efforts forward — including a few that lost funding since his own time in Washington On this episode of The Brake, we're joined by Christopher Coes — the third-ranking member of USDOT under President Biden and superstar alum of Transportation for America, Smart Growth America, and the Brookings Institution — to talk about his new initiative, AmericaFWD. With the help of former WashDOT head and guest of the podcast Roger Millar and a deep network of infrastructure experts, they're helping a select group of U.S. communities push forward major multimodal infrastructure efforts, projects to reconnect communities, and more. And you might even recognize a few of those efforts from the list of projects that had their funding rescinded under Trump. Give it a listen, then check out AmericaFWD's State of Play report, apply to be a part of its Project Delivery Accelerator Lab, and explore its Advisory Network.

The idea of providing a "universal basic income" to ensure every U.S. resident can afford the fundamentals is gaining traction with the rise of AI. But even that much-needed money might not guarantee much of a life to people who live in neighborhoods with dirty air and water, insufficient housing, and — yes — no transportation to access to all the things they need.

Enter the idea of a Universal Basic Neighborhood: where every community has built in all the ingredients necessary for its average neighbor to live to at least 80, including a transportation system where their chance of dying in a car crash is low and they enjoy a multitude of mobility options. And those ingredients didn't come out of nowhere: the researchers behind the study scoured the literature to find neighborhoods where residents have a healthy life expectancy, thanks in part to policies governing their immediate communities. On today's episode of The Brake, we talk to one of the authors of that study, Michael O. Emerson, about how to adapt the "universal basic neighborhood" concept for unique places, what a universal basic transportation system really looks like, and why giving the basics to every neighborhood matters — even to people who already live in places that are providing them all the mobility, safety, and longevity they need.

Highway teardowns are messy, multi-decade projects that spark countless debates and competing narratives — even among livable streets advocates who broadly agree that replacing autocentric infrastructure is a good idea. In his Peabody Award-winning podcast The Big Dig, though, Ian Coss was able to do the impossible by encapsulating the Boston project of the same name into nine astonishing, thought-provoking episodes — and now, he's doing telling the story of similar projects in cities across the America. In October, Coss embarkedo on what he's calling The Highway Teardown tour, which has already taken him to four cities that either have, or are trying to, reimagine their worst infrastructure. And with eight more cities to go and follow up podcast of tapings from those shows forthcoming this spring, the tour has become an opportunity to reflect on the larger freeway fighting movement across America, how advocates are pushing forward even under Trump, and how to do these projects even better.

Washington State is on the brink of completing America's first comprehensive, statewide inventory of every single sidewalk and pedestrian path — and along with it, a collection of tools that make it easy for transportation professionals and every day travelers to see exactly where those paths fall short. But why did it take any American state so long to create something like this, even in an era of Google Maps and ubiquitous AI? And what will it take to bring it to communities across the country in a way that lasts — and allows the data to keep getting better? Today on The Brake, we chat with Dr. Anat Caspi about the resource she's calling OS Connect — short for Open Sidewalks — and the upcoming conference to explore the challenges and opportunities of leveraging big data for big change in the pedestrian realm. And along the way, we explore how her late daughter, Aviv, helped inspire her work, the tool named in her honor, and the importance of "anti-ableist AI" and bringing the human perspective to technology.

Protests are raging in the streets of Minneapolis and across the country as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents accelerate their campaign to deport migrants — with increasingly violent and deadly results, particularly in the transportation realm. But what is the transportation reform advocate's role in that fight? And can the battle to remake our violent transportation system help support the goal of making the entire country less susceptible to violent governments? We're sitting with those difficult questions on today's episode of the Brake, as well as the deaths of Renee Good, Alex Pretti, Silverio Villegas Gonzales, and more.