Last time on the Brake, we chatted with authors Robert Braun and Richard Randell about why automobility isn't really about cars at all — and how it's beocme what they call a "totalitarian system" that touches virtually every part of our lives. Today, we bring you part two of that conversation, and dive into the difficult question of what a world beyond automobility might look like — and how on Earth we might get there. Would it be good enough to just make automobility less destructive by equipping cars with batteries and automated driving features? How different would our world look if the evidence of automobility's violence wasn't immediately hidden from the public eye? And could the tobacco industry serve as an example for regulating not just the car itself, but the culture that surrounds it? Listen up, and check out Post Automobility Futures today.

Car culture is all around us. But is it really just about vehicles, roads, motorists and violent commercials on TV, or is it is a political system as deeply entrenched in cultures around the world as our governments, economic systems, and structures of oppression? On this episode of the The Brake, we sat down with authors Robert Braun and Richard Randell to talk about their book Post Automobility Futures, and how our collective obsession with speed, efficiency, and ruthless technological progress has transformed the way we define what public space is for and what forms of violence we find acceptable. And they argue that this obsession began long before the automobile — and that getting beyond it will require dismantling a value system that is becoming more and more deep set, even as the car as we know it evolves. This is part one of a two-part conversation; check back in two weeks for the second installment. And in the meantime, check out our earlier conversation with Braun and Randell about their work.

Even as gas prices hit historic highs, many Americans aren't driving any less — because so many of their communities are so car-dependent, they don't really have a choice. But what about people who could skip the pump but don't, simply because they're in the habit of driving everywhere they go? On this episode of The Brake, host Kea Wilson sits down with environmental psychology expert Dr. Ian Walker to talk about why conventional strategies to disincentivize driving don't always work, and why even incentivizing other modes can't always tempt people onto buses, trains, bikes and sidewalks. And then we explore what it will really take to shift Americans' deeply-ingrained travel routines — and why every policymaker needs to understand the irrational, emotional, and deeply human reasons we make our travel choices. Give it a listen, and check out Dr. Walker's website and the Twitter thread that inspired the episode here.

Planning and engineering students are poised to play a major role in shaping America's transportation system for decades to come. But do either of them agree with sustainable transportation advocates about what that future should look like — or even with each other?

Today on The Brake, host Kea Wilson spoke with researchers Kelcie Ralph and Nick Klein, who conducted a new survey on how well these two groups of future built environment professionals understand fundamental concepts like "induced demand," as well as their opinions on the fundamental importance of reducing driving. Then, we dug into what it will take to get both disciplines and the public on the same page as transportation reformers — and why no one shouldn't take it for granted that doing it will be easy.

Countless communities across America say they're planning for a future where more residents walk, bike, and roll to get around. So why do transportation leaders spend so much time drafting "pedestrian master plans" and "bike master plans" without accompanying "car master plans" aimed at building a world where fewer people get behind the wheel?

Today on The Brake, we're joined by urban planner, community organizer and all around rad person Cathy Tuttle, who actually sat down and wrote a car master plan for her own city of Portland, Oregon. And she hopes that advocates and transportation leaders in other communities will follow her lead — because if they don't, she argues, we'll never truly reckon with the impact of car dependency on our communities, much less chart an effective strategy to dismantle it.

Neighborhood walking tours, group bike rides, and organized strolls in the park aren't typically thought of as front-line strategies to break a city's dependence on automobiles. Some advocates argue that without events like them, though, U.S. neighborhoods will never transform into truly people-centered places — particularly in socially and racially marginalized communities. On this episode of The Brake, host Kea Wilson sits down with Olatunji Oboi Reed, president and CEO of Equiticity, to talk about what he and his colleagues calls "community mobility rituals," or regular, free, hyper-local events that dismantle barriers to sustainable transportation and build the social infrastructure that neighborhoods need. Along the way, we chat about what makes a "mobility ritual" different than your standard-issue Critical Mass ride, why white-dominated transportation authorities tend to overlook the power of community programs, and how mobility rituals might be integrated into the planning process itself. Listen in, check out Equiticity's webinar series on community mobility rituals here.

The humble zoning code may be the single most important tool that sustainable transportation advocates can wield in the fight to end car dependence ... if they can make heads or tails of their communities' hundreds of pages of local laws. But what if any American could tell at a glance how her unique local land use policies influence the way she and her neighbors get around, without having to dig through a mountain of arcane jargon to get there?

Today on The Brake, we're talking to Sara Bronin, law professor at Cornell University and the mastermind behind the National Zoning Atlas, a collaborative effort to make the basic building blocks of land use policy make sense to more Americans — and help them see how other communities stack up.

We talk about why proponents of people-centered transportation can't afford to overlook zoning, how changing something as simple as a parking code can transform a community, and what bad land use policy can mean for the housing market in walkable neighborhoods (spoiler: death by a thousand cuts.)

Anyone who's ever tried to get a new crosswalk in their neighborhood knows how hard it can be just to figure out who to call — never mind how to get whoever's on the other end of the line to listen. And any transportation professional knows how challenging it can be to get that call from a resident, and realize that they don't have the faintest idea of how decisions actually get made on our streets. But what if cities offered a crash course that got both groups speaking the same language — and in the process, transformed ordinary citizens into effective and well-informed transportation advocates? Today on The Brake, we welcome Keith Bartholomew of University of Utah and Nathan McNeil of Portland State University, who are hoping to bring the concept of the "Citizen Transportation Academy" to communities across the U.S. Give it a listen, and be sure to check out the beta version of McNeil's curriculum handbook if you're curious about starting a class in your town.

Streetsblog's America's Best Bus Stops Contest is down to its final two contenders. Nationwide, though, the United States have a lot more sorry stops than good ones — and to understand how our top two wonderful waiting areas bucked the trend, we brought in an expert for some game-time commentary. Today, we're talking with bus stop expert and Transit Center Senior Research Associate Mary Buchanan, author of the indispensable report From Sorry to Superb: Everything You Need to Know About Great Bus Stops. Host Kea Wilson chats with Buchanan about how cities can create — or fight for — the structural conditions that help create great bus stops, and keep them well-maintained for years to come. And then we dig into why America's best bus networks might not have a whole lot of "great" stops at all — but they would have plenty of adequate ones. Give it a listen, and don't forget to cast your vote in the final round of America's Best Bus Stops by Friday, April 15 at 10am ET.

Streetsblog USAOn this episode of The Brake, Kea talks to Benjie de la Peña, chair of the Global Partnership for Informal Transportation and author of the must-read Substack newsletter Makeshift Mobility, about all the ways that people navigate their cities on shared modes without the support of taxpayer-funded public institutions. And though they're easier to spot in the global south, these modes exist in U.S. cities, too — though not everyone thinks that's necessarily a good thing.

Still, de la Peña points out that makeshift mobility may move more people than every traditional train, buses, and taxis around the world combined — and it may "represent probably the single greatest lever to decarbonizing the transportation sector" we have.

Tune in for a fascinating conversation about tuktuks, matatus, jitneys, and everything in between, and what the world of informal transportation has to do with decolonizing our collective ideas about what transit can — and should — be. And don't forget to click over to Streetsblog to take a look at a few makeshift mobility vehicles for yourself.

In lieu of our traditional transcript, check out just a few of the makeshift mobility options that are serving neighborhoods around the globe: