The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast

Michael O. Emerson, sociologist and Rice University researcher who co-authored the Universal Basic Neighborhood study, discusses the framework that ensures neighborhoods provide the basics for residents to reach age 80. He explains the neighborhood-level mix that matters, details transportation as a core domain with four key measures, and talks about applying the framework in real cities and the case for universal standards.

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.

How can transportation start-ups help fight climate change, and who are the leaders pushing them forward? We sat down with Josh Dorfman, host of the podcast 'Supercool', to talk about what he's learned from interviewing the founders behind companies like CityThread, Veo, Brompton Bicycle, Zum, and Upway. And along the way, he unpacks why it's critical to harness 'market momentum' in the battle to decarbonize our cities and make them more livable for everyone — especially as Washington gears up to rewrite our federal transportation laws in 2026.

There's a big difference between knowing what is best of your city's transportation system, and knowing how to fight the often fierce political battles you need to win in order to make it real. Fortunately, one author has written a manual to help transit advocates across America do exactly that, from picking campaigns out of the tangle of interlocking transportation challenges that ensnare our cities, to winning over the skeptical — and everything in between. On this episode of The Brake, we're joined by Carter Lavin's to discuss his new book "If You Want to Win, You've Got To Fight: A Guide to Effective Transportation Advocacy," which host Kea Wilson called "the book the transportation reform movement has been waiting for."

What will it take to wake more of the world up to the dangers of mass automobility — and could a book be help Americans imagine a future beyond car dominance? That's what Sarah Goodyear and her co-authors are hoping as they release their new book "Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves From the Tyranny of the Automobile." Along with Doug Gordon and Aaron Naperstek, with whom she co-founded the legendary "War on Cars" podcast, she's bringing the conversation about transportation reform to a new audience, and hoping to give even veteran advocates new tools to talk about why we need to radically rethink our streets. We sat down with Goodyear at the Vision Zero Cities conference in New York City last week to dig deep into the research about how, in her words, "cars ruin" so much of our world, why we can't dismantle other forms of violence without confronting our violent transportation system, and the one politician she most wants to pick up this book.

Hey everyone, it's Kea; welcome the brake. If you've ever taken a stroll on New York's High Line or ridden along Missouri's Katy Trail, you might assume that it was a no-brainer for communities across the U.S. to rip up the old abandoned train tracks that used to run there and build a sanctuary for people outside cars. In actuality, though, the story of the rails-to-trails movement is one of the most epic, controversial, and still ongoing tales in the history of American advocacy — and now, it's finally getting a film that's worthy of that epic narrative. On October 15th PBS.org and member stations near you will air a new documentary called From Rails to Trails, which "captures the 60-year struggle — and transformative triumph — of one of America's most unlikely grassroots movements." It's a star-studded affair featuring narration by academy award nominee Edward Norton and cameos from folks like Pete Buttigieg, but one of its highlights are interviews with author, activist, and now, executive producer Peter Harnik, who literally wrote the book on the history of the rail-trail movement and its role in challenging car dependency. On this episode of the Brake, we sat down with Harnik to talk about the secret history of one of the fiercest battles over public space in U.S. history, the time rail-trails ended up before the Supreme Court, the Trump administration's recent clawbacks to trail funding, and more.

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.

Active transportation advocates constantly get accused of waging a "war on cars." But when you look around our communities, it sure looks more like we're in the middle of a war on walking and biking — and the wrong side is winning. In today's episode of The Brake, we sat down with Dr. Tepi McLaughlin, who co-authored of a provocative new paper that argues it's time to name the "enemies of physical activity" and dismantle policies they push, rather than just focusing on the additive benefits of building more sidewalks and bike lanes. And along the way, we talk about some of the hidden ways that corporations and policymakers have made non-automotive transportation so dangerous and rare, and what we can do to change it.