Motornormativity: Helping Others See the 'Water'

Free Yourself from the Tyranny of the Automobile!! That's the subtitle of the new book Life After Cars, written by the hosts of the popular podcast "War On Cars." And listen, I am 100% on board: this quasi-hippy spent most of her 20s trekking around college towns on a crappy commuter bike. But like a lot of you, I also live in a place where the infrastructure has refused to catch up to my desire to have fewer cars on the road.

So here's what I absolutely loved about this conversation: we talked at length about all the ways that cars make our lives worse... and also talked about the ways that we need them (particularly in rural areas) and the movement they afford people whose freedoms are otherwise circumscribed. There is absolutely nothing fixed about our current car-contingent culture, and Sarah and Doug were so good at fostering a funny (and super smart) conversation about what sucks, what doesn't have to suck, and places that are working to make it suck less. This was one of those eps were Melody and I finished recording and couldn't stop texting about how good they were — so let's keep the conversation going in the comments.

GREAT NEWS: WE HAVE VERY GOOD EPISODE TRANSCRIPTS NOW! They come out within 24 hours of the pod — just come back and click here. We pay an actual human for help with these, so thank you for either being a paid subscriber or listening to the ads that make this model possible!

If you're a paid subscriber and haven't yet set up your subscriber RSS feed in your podcast player, here's the EXTREMELY easy how-to .

And if you're having any other issues with your Patreon subscription — please get in touch! Email me at annehelenpetersen @ gmail OR submit a request to Patreon Support.

Thanks to the sponsors of today's episode!

• Get 15% off your first order by going to Blueland.com/CULTURE 

• Wake up with clearer skin, smoother hair, and cooler sleep. Use code CULTUREPOD for an extra 30% off at blissy.com/CULTUREPOD

• Feed the obsession by going to ollie.com/culture and using code CULTURE to get 60% off your first box!

• Get $35 off your first box of wild-caught, sustainable seafood—delivered right to your door. Go to:  https://www.wildalaskan.com/CULTURE

Show Notes:

• Buy Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile here!

• Listen to the War on Cars podcast (and if you love it, subscribe to their Patreon)

• You can also sign up for their newsletter here

• Follow War on Cars on IG here

• Oh and check out all of the great War on Cars merch here

• For more on the creative traffic solutions in Ghent, watch this YouTube video

  We're currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:

• HISTORICAL GOSSIP! We're talking with Nichole Hill, host of Our Ancestors Were Messy, about hot, messy, ideologically fascinating world of Black gossip columns during the golden era of Black newspapers (1930 to 1960). What do you want to know about how the Black press worked during this era — and how gossip in particular worked (both about stars, local celebrities, and normal people?) There's so much here!!!

• Conversion Therapy (how it affects people late into life, how it still exists, etc. etc — we're talking to Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez about his new book, Conversion Therapy Dropout, and there are so many connections to the ways the current administration is currently trying to "de-trans" people in custody)

• Anything you need advice for/want musings about for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment.

• As always, you can submit your questions (and ideas for future eps) here

  For this week’s discussion: THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: How would your life change with fewer cars on the road? If you have a car, what infrastructure improvement would make it easier to let it go?