Fixing America's Car Culture with David Zipper

Fixing America's Car Culture with David Zipper

Author: The War on Cars, LLC January 2, 2024 Duration: 48:50

Happy New Year! We're kicking off 2024 by bringing you our conversation with David Zipper, one of the hardest-working analysts on the transportation scene today. You may be familiar with David from his writing at Bloomberg CityLab, Slate and Fast Company, where he relentlessly covers road safety, climate change, and the future of micromobility. 

We talked with David about the excesses of the auto industry, our road fatality crisis, the absurd way speed limits are determined on American streets, and whether we might ever be able to swap out our bloated SUVs for electric golf carts. Or if that's too much to ask, will cities at least start charging people more for driving massive glacier melters?

LINKS:

You can find out all about David Zipper's work, along with links to his writing, at his website.

See David on NBCDFW's excellent series about why Dallas is such a deadly place to drive.

***Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive access to ad-free versions of all our episodes, exclusive bonus content and stickers.***

This episode is produced with support from Cleverhood. Listen to the episode for the latest Cleverhood discount code.

See The War on Cars LIVE at Caveat on NYC on Wednesday, January 31st. Tickets are going fast!

Register for the Winter Cycling Congress, February 22 - 24 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. We will be there!

Buy official War on Cars merch at our store

Find us on Bluesky, Mastodon, Instagram, Facebook and Threads.

Follow and review us on Apple Podcasts

This episode was recorded by Josh Wilcox at the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio. It was edited by Ali Lemer. Our theme music is by Nathaniel Goodyear.

TheWarOnCars.org

 


Imagine a world not built around traffic jams and parking lots, but shaped for people. The War on Cars is a dispatch from the front lines of that effort, a collective conversation questioning the automobile’s dominance over our cities, our environment, and our daily lives. Each episode digs into the real-world fight to reclaim public space, examining everything from the politics of a new bike lane to the history of how cars came to rule. You’ll hear from urban planners, activists, historians, and ordinary people pushing back, offering a mix of sharp analysis, on-the-ground reporting, and compelling narratives. This isn’t just about transportation; it’s about the culture and societal choices that have led us here, and the tangible, often inspiring work to create safer, quieter, and more connected communities. Tune in for a thoughtful and necessary critique of the status quo, a podcast dedicated to the idea that our streets can-and should-be for so much more.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The War on Cars
Podcast Episodes
Back to School with the Bike Bus [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:54
If you've never heard of a bike bus—or a bicibús, as it's known in the Catalonian capital of Barcelona—it's a beautifully simple idea. Kids and parents ride their bikes to school along a pre-planned route, picking up cla…
Inclusive Transportation with Veronica O. Davis [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:30
In her new book, Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities, Veronica O. Davis — the Director of Transportation and Drainage Operations for the city of Houston, Texas — takes a hard look at t…
TEASER: Chaos in the Bike Lane with Aaron Gordon [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 10:49
The rising problem of mopeds and motorcycles in New York City bike lanes is impossible to ignore but the solutions are anything but simple. Recently, journalist and friend of the podcast Aaron Gordon wrote an essay for h…
EXTRA: Inside Automotive Journalism with Bob Sorokanich [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:54
***This is a bonus episode that was previously only available to Patreon supporters of The War on Cars. If you want to hear more bonus episodes like this, please enlist today! We'll taking a very short summer break and w…
TEASER: Live from New York! [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 5:58
This special episode of The War on Cars was recorded live before a sold-out audience at Caveat on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and was styled after a community board meeting... except instead of people yelling at eac…
Traffication with Paul Donald [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:29
In his groundbreaking book, Traffication: How Cars Destroy Nature and What We Can Do About It, scientist and researcher Paul Donald synthesizes dozens of studies to help us understand what cars and roads do to living thi…
SPECIAL: Freeway Exit [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:37
This is a special presentation of the first episode of Freeway Exit, a six-part series produced by award-winning reporter Andrew Bowen of KPBS Public Media in San Diego, California. Freeway Exit reveals the mostly forgot…
Is It Worth It To Confront Drivers? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:25
Have you ever been walking across the street when a driver turned into your path and almost hit you? Or riding your bike when a hostile horn-honker laid into you for delaying them to the next red light by a few seconds?…
TEASER: Inside Automotive Journalism with Bob Sorokanich [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 9:07
Have you ever wondered what the reporters who cover the auto industry think about oversized SUVs and pickups and whether the fever for these gas-guzzling, space-hogging, planet-heating and people-killing monstrosities wi…

«1...678910