Reviewing “Life After Cars”

If you have been advocating for safe streets for a while, chances are you have heard of “The War on Cars” podcast hosted by Doug Gordon and Sarah Goodyear from New York City. The podcast got its name from former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford who frequently used that term to discredit streetcars and cyclists. Last year, Gordon & Goodyear put out a book called “Life After Cars” and after waiting a few months on hold from the library, I finally got to check out a copy last week. Let’s dive in to see what it has to offer.

Right off the bat, “Life After Cars” gets you hooked not only by arguing “cars ruin everything” with their opening statement, but also written in a way that’s applicable to cities worldwide and to everyone from those curious about alternatives to driving to seasoned advocates looking for new ideas. It offers a brief history of the war on cars, the continued carbrain resistance we face today, the many negative effects of car dependency, and some of the ways citizens and cities are fighting back. I also liked the use of some personal examples including Doug Gordon’s daughter Galit successfully fighting for a bike corral near their school.

Regarding the history, a few things stood out. The first traffic death happened back in September 1899 when Henry Bliss stepped off a New York streetcar and was struck by a taxi driver, while the term “war on cars” was used as far back as the early 1900’s. The Superman comics even featured a War on the Car segment back in 1939, while there was significant backlash against cars back in the 1920’s. Sadly, the automobile lobby’s power was evident when a proposal to require speed governors in Cincinnati was defeated in 1923 and was featured in this War on Cars podcast with Peter Norton. And let’s not forget this classic Goofy Motor Mania clip from 1950 which also got a shout out. 😉

The history section was followed by some arguments against better cities we all have heard before including “this isn’t Amsterdam” or “I’m not against bikes but …”, along with a discussion on bikelash. However, I prefer to use the term “carbrain” now because similar arguments have been used to resist transit projects such as bus priority lanes on Toronto’s Dufferin and Bathurst Streets, as well as the scrapping of pedestrian priority areas in Toronto’s Kensington Market and (possibly) on Yonge Street. The term “motonormativity” was also mentioned which further describes how we have normalized car dependency over the years.

The following five chapters go into detail on how cars have ruined childhood, nature, human lives, society, and racial justice along with plenty of examples around. It makes you want to go ballistic over how walking and biking to school have become discouraged over the years, though fortunately bike buses are helping reverse this trend. The nature chapter reminds us how even with electric vehicles, we will still have roadkill and particulate from tires killing salmon and other animals. The way cars kill us is not just directly from crashes, but also from air and noise pollution. Increased traffic adversely impacts social interaction and increases loneliness, while it also makes us act like jerks behind the wheel. Finally, cars adversely affected racialized communities through tearing down neighbourhoods for highways, segregation on buses, disproportionate police targeting, and gentrification.

Despite the harms caused by cars, the book offers hope in terms of better street designs, political will exhibited by mayors such as (now former) Anne Hildago in Paris, and tactical urbanism measures such as the annual Park(ing) Day events where parking spaces get reclaimed for other uses and adding temporary bike lane barriers. Political will still exists within North America with the work done by former New York City transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan – whose “Streetfight” book helped inspire “Life After Cars” – and Emeryville Mayor John Bauters (a.k.a. America’s Bike Mayor) who visited Toronto in 2022.

If you want to read about specific cities, “Streetfight”, Albert Koehl’s “Wheeling Through Toronto”, and Melissa and Chris Bruntlett’s “Building The Cycling City” are worth looking at. Taras Grescoe’s “Straphanger” has you covered for a transit focus, Tom Babin’s “Frostbike” is a good primer on winter cycling, and John Pucher and Ralph Buehler’s “City Cycling” is good for those who want to dive deeper into the data. But if you want to read something that’s universally applicable and fun reading, then I certainly recommend adding “Life After Cars” to your reading list!