Car Culture
Streetsblog Basics
Seven Ways Technology Is Rendering the Automobile Obsolete
As we try to understand why young people are so much less jazzed about driving than previous generations, one possible explanation always comes up: Kids today just love their smart phones.
May 15, 2013
Millennials Will Drive More as They Age, But Still Less Than Their Parents
At some point over the past few years, a lot of my friends started moving to Silver Spring and Takoma Park and Falls Church. These inner-ring, transit-connected suburbs of DC are still far less compact and walkable than the neighborhoods my friends moved from. So they bought cars.
May 15, 2013
Queens Auto Dealer: Buy a Car, Get Heart Disease
Clarence spotted this ad for a used car dealership in Monday's Daily News. We can't decide what we like best about it -- the "trade in your shoes for cardiovascular disease" concept or the fact that it includes transit directions to the lot, in Long Island City.
February 26, 2013
Ford Tries to Sell More Cars By Looking to a Future With Fewer Cars
Ford has spent the last few years fretting about how to reach out to Gen Y. The car company made news earlier this year when it re-designed its 2015 Mustang to appeal to buyers born between 1980 and 1999. (Apparently Gen Y just screams "shark-nosed grille and round headlights" to Ford.)
December 14, 2012
World’s Most Entitled Driver Sentenced to Wear “Idiot” Sign
Need a break from election coverage? Check out this shoo-in for the bad driver hall of fame: In an attempt to avoid waiting behind a school bus unloading children, a Cleveland-area woman was caught driving on the sidewalk.
November 7, 2012
Teenagers’ Cars Are the Gifts That Keep on Wreaking Havoc
The multiple-teenager-fatality car crash remains a sad staple of journalism. And no wonder. The instant loss of several lives is so dreadful and the death of a young person so poignant that the combination is shattering. When a car-full of teens crash and die, the article can almost be assembled by rote: the devastated families, the grieving community, the investigation that will forever be “ongoing,” and the seeming arbitrariness of young lives snuffed out in a few seconds.
October 16, 2012
Multi-Modal Summer Reading
Summer gives permission to set aside serious reading for the refreshment of fluffier stuff. This year, though, several meaningful books on transportation are out that you might want to tuck into your beach bag. Each is that rare thing: a should-read that’s also a want-to-read.
August 10, 2012
High Anxiety: Good Parents and Bad Parents on the Road
America’s roads have suddenly become dangerous places for America’s children. At least, that’s what’s suggested by a flurry of viral stories involving kids and cars.
June 26, 2012
Free Parking: The Agony and the Lunacy
A reader passes on this notice, one of many distributed on Park Slope windshields. We present it without further comment.
April 27, 2012
New A&E Series Mines Reckless NYC Driving for Ratings
From the network that brought you "Parking Wars," the reality TV show about Philadelphia parking scofflaws and the agents who put up with their abuse, comes "Last Chance Driving School," the reality TV show about student drivers running amok on the streets of Western Queens.
April 11, 2012