Tony Kushner on The Pushcart War

A Physical Education with Casey Johnston

Just as it is with road safety, so much of how Americans talk about health pushes the responsibility for eating right and exercising onto the individual, ignoring the many structural barriers that prevent people from making "good" choices. Through her newsletter, She's a Beast, and her bestselling book A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting, Casey Johnston cuts through the noise, making connections across various disciplines to help people rethink their notions about health, exercise and body positivity. Casey joins The War on Cars to talk about how "at the scale of daily life, cars should be systematically discouraged, in order to even begin to contend with the deaths and health decline from a lack of physical activity." ***Support The War on Cars on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/] and receive exclusive access to ad-free versions of regular episodes, Patreon-only bonus content, Discord access, invitations to live events, merch discounts and free stickers!*** Order our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile [https://www.lifeaftercars.com/], out now from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Find out the latest about our book tour at LifeAfterCars.com [http://lifeaftercars.com]. LINKS: Buy Casey Johnston's books, A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting [https://bookshop.org/a/9252/9781538773253] and Liftoff: Couch to Barbell [https://bookshop.org/a/9252/9798218522896], as well as books by all of our podcast guests at our official page on Bookshop.org [http://bookshop.org] Subscribe to Casey Johnston's newsletter, She's a Beast [https://www.shesabeast.co/], and read her post on "the plot to strangle the American of life, liberty, and happiness." [https://www.shesabeast.co/the-plot-to-strangle-the-american-of-life-liberty-and-happiness/] Thanks to Cleverhood [https://cleverhood.com/pages/thewaroncars] for sponsoring The War on Cars. Listen for the latest discount code and get the best rain gear for walking and cycling at 15% off. Buy a certified, pre-owned e-bike from Upway and save $100 off any purchase of $800 or more with code TWOC100. Visit Upway.co [https://upway.co/?utm_source=TWOC&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=March] to get rolling. Check out the Lumos Ultra Smart bike helmet [https://ridelumos.com/products/lumos-ultra] and the Firefly smart light system [https://ridelumos.com/collections/bike-lights] at RideLumos.com [http://ridelumos.com] www.thewaroncars.org [http://www.thewaroncars.org]

Streets for Play, Streets for Freedom

Streets can be more than places to move and store cars—they can be places for children to grow and thrive. Alice Ferguson and Tim Gill are the UK-based authors of a new paper called "Streets for Play, Streets for Freedom: How a 'child lens' would transform transport policy [https://playingout.net/take-action/nationally/a-child-lens-on-streets-and-transport-policy]." Each of them has decades of experience in envisioning a world where children can use streets safely and happily. Together they are calling for a "radical, child-centric approach to transport policy and planning." ***Join [https://www.patreon.com/c/thewaroncarspod] The War on Cars on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/cw/thewaroncarspod] and listen to exclusive ad-free versions of regular episodes, Patreon-only bonus content, Discord access, invitations to live events, merch discounts and free stickers!*** Listen to our interview with Tim Gill [https://thewaroncars.org/2025/09/30/episode-158-cities-for-children-with-tim-gill/] from last fall. Read Tim's book, Urban Playground [https://bookshop.org/a/9252/9781859469293]. Learn more about the Playing Out [https://playingout.net/] movement. Order our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile [https://drive.google.com/open?id=1y9fptkL_uYgYcw5yPcA4m2Phzf6WFqra], out now from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Get the book and find us on tour at LifeAfterCars.com [http://lifeaftercars.com]. Thanks to Upway for sponsoring this episode. Use this link to sell your bike [https://upway.co/pages/sell-your-ebike?utm_source=TWOC&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=April#/form/brand]. You can also save $100 off any order of $800 or more with the code TWOC100 [https://upway.co/]. Thanks also to Cleverhood [https://cleverhood.com/pages/thewaroncars]. Listen to this episode for the latest discount code and get 15% off the best rain gear for walking and cycling. TheWarOnCars.org [http://thewaroncars.org]

EPISODE 170: A Doctor's View of Traffic Violence

We talk with a guest who knows firsthand just how destructive cars can be. Dr. Rex Tai is a physician who works in long-term care. Many of his patients are the victims of traffic violence. His experience providing care for these people has been part of his growing awareness of how our country's car-dependence creates and exacerbates inequality and division in our society and even in our global politics. We talk about all that, the effects of catastrophic injury for individuals and families, and how the public health crisis of traffic violence is just one aspect of a system that limits our mobility in so many ways, as well as dividing us from each other. If you'd like to check out some of the organizations Dr. Tai mentions in the episode, here they are: Los Deliveristas Unidos [https://www.instagram.com/losdeliveristasunidos_ny/] WE ACT for Environmental Justice [https://weact.org/] NYC-DSA Ecosocialists [https://ecosocialists.nyc/] Join [https://www.patreon.com/c/thewaroncarspod] The War on Cars on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/cw/thewaroncarspod] and listen to exclusive ad-free versions of regular episodes, Patreon-only bonus content, Discord access, invitations to live events, merch discounts and free stickers! Order our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile [http://lifeaftercars.com], out now from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Get the book and find us on tour at LifeAfterCars.com [http://lifeaftercars.com]. Thanks to Upway for sponsoring this episode. Use this link [https://upway.co/pages/sell-your-ebike?utm_source=TWOC&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=April#/form/brand] to sell your bike. You can also save $100 off any order of $800 or more with the code TWOC100 [https://upway.co/]. Thanks also to Cleverhood [https://cleverhood.com/pages/thewaroncars]. Listen to this episode for the latest discount code and get 15% off the best rain gear for walking and cycling. TheWarOnCars.org [http://thewaroncars.org]

PREVIEW: Let's Get Political

This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode [https://www.patreon.com/c/thewaroncarspod]. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, plus ad-free versions of regular episodes, merch discounts, presale tickets to live shows, and more, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars [https://www.patreon.com/c/thewaroncarspod]. For a long time, safe streets and transit advocacy organizations have had to play a careful game. While non-profit organizations can advocate for policies and infrastructure changes that protect pedestrians and cyclists and make transit more efficient and accessible, they can't endorse candidates for office or otherwise throw their weight around when another election rolls around. Thankfully, that's changing. There are now a growing number of safe-streets and transit-focused political action committees and lobbying groups that have sprung up to explicitly influence and endorse candidates that they see as friendly to the cause. How did they get started? How have they wielded their influence to elect good people who will enact good policies? Does it take a lot of money to make a difference? If ordinary people want to start their own PAC or lobbying group, where do they begin? We talk to the founders of StreetsPAC in New York, Streets PAC NJ, and the Better Streets Chicago Action Fund to find out how to win elections and influence politicians. Become a Patreon subscriber for full access. [https://www.patreon.com/thewaroncarspod] Order our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile [https://lifeaftercars.com/]. And catch us on tour in 2026: Tickets for live shows are on sale now! [https://www.lifeaftercars.com/] TheWarOnCars.org [https://thewaroncars.org/]

Tony Kushner on The Pushcart War

The Pushcart War [https://bookshop.org/a/9252/9781590179369]—written by Jean Merrill and illustrated by Ronni Solbert and first published in 1964—is a charming and provocative children's novel that tells the story of a band of pushcart vendors who fight against the organized forces of big trucks on the congested, contested streets of New York City. For Tony Kushner, the Pulitzer-prize-winning playwright, screenwriter, and author, reading the book as a child was a formative experience. "It made opposition, even nonviolent civil disobedience, seem fun and right and necessary and heroic, and something even someone as powerless as a kid can and should undertake," he has said. March 2026 marks the 50th anniversary of the date on which the events described in the book are said to have begun. So we invited Kushner on to talk about The Pushcart War and what it can tell us about how to defend human beauty and agency against the brutal forces of technocratic capitalism. Get The Pushcart War [https://bookshop.org/a/9252/9781590179369], plus other great books for kids [https://bookshop.org/lists/the-war-on-cars-for-kids], at our Bookshop.org page [https://bookshop.org/shop/thewaroncars]. Join The War on Cars on Patreon [http://patreon.com/thewaroncarspod] and listen to exclusive ad-free versions of regular episodes, Patreon-only bonus content, Discord access, invitations to live events, merch discounts and free stickers! Order our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, [https://drive.google.com/open?id=1y9fptkL_uYgYcw5yPcA4m2Phzf6WFqra] out now from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Find us on tour and get tickets at LifeAfterCars.com [http://lifeaftercars.com]. Thanks to Upway [https://upway.co/?utm_source=TWOC&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=March] for sponsoring this episode. Use this link [https://upway.co/?utm_source=TWOC&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=March] and save $100 off any order of $800 or more with the code TWOC100. Thanks also to Cleverhood [https://cleverhood.com/pages/thewaroncars]. Listen to this episode for the latest discount code and get 15% off the best rain gear for walking and cycling. The War on Cars is produced with support from the Helen and William Mazer Foundation. TheWarOnCars.org [http://www.thewaroncars.org]