The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast

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.

Car culture has a higher body count than both world wars combined. So why don't we think of automobility in the same way we think about the bloody and destructive global conflicts that dominate the news — and what would it take to transform our streets into a tool to make our whole society more peaceful, rather than more violent? Today on the Brake, we sat down with PhD candidate Ashton Rohmer to talk about her fascinating new paper that looks at our transportation culture through a "peace and conflict studies" lens — and why car domination is a kind of warfare unto itself, even if claims of a counterattack are seriously overblown. And then we dig into what shifts when we approach transportation reform advocacy as a part of the larger "peacebuilding" project — and why self-proclaimed peacebuilders need to embrace ending car culture, too.

Secretary Sean Duffy withholding grants for America's first high speed rail line. Congress surprisingly showing up for Amtrak in its annual budget. Elon Musk pushing for privatization. A surprisingly strong showing for trains in the Senate's budget proposal, and advocates who have even bigger hopes for the future. It seems like every time you turn on the news, there's an explosive new headline about passenger rail in America — but what's really driving them all? On this episode of the Brake, we sat down with the most plugged-in rail advocate we know, Jim Mathews of the National Rail Passengers Association, to break down some of the biggest rail stories of the day and give us a sense of where the State of the Union stands for this critical mode. And along the way, we dig into some stories you might have missed, like the massive freight merger that should make Amtrak passengers nervous, and more.

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 our basic human needs. And along the way, she touches on teen driving safety, the concept of "bumpability," and why parents are scared to let their kids outside on their own, even if they're not worried about car crashes.

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 we need to reject what he calls "design essentialism" and accept the necessity of traffic enforcement; what it will take to get America's seniors to move to places that can support their changing mobility needs (or for the leaders of the places they already live to make it possible for more seniors to get around in more ways); and, of course, golf carts.

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 all those coutnries — and what it would really take to change them. Tune in now, read the original paper, or check out the innovative crowd-funding platform that fueled this research.

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 mirror of the sharp divides that highways draw between our neighborhoods? Today on the Brake, we're talking to data science researcher Luca Maria Aiello from IT University of Copenhagen, who found a fascinating way to quantify exactly how much downtown highways disconnect our social networks, in addition to our sidewalk, bike lane and transit networks. And along the way, we discuss what those divisions cost us in social mobility, democratic cohesion, and real dollars and cents.

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 talk about all things mini-mobility, also known as light urban vehicles (LUVs), personal light moblity (PLMs), Neighboorhood Electric vehicles, (NEVs), and about a million other acronyms. Whatever you call them, Ricks and De La Peña recently won a $750,000 federal grant to help American communities encourage their use – only to find out, days later, that the grant might be in jeopardy thanks to President Trump's executive orders. Listen in to learn more about their project and how you can help keep it alive.