Car Dependence
Streetsblog Basics
HEAVY TRAFFIC: Driving Continues to Rise, Undermining Literally Every Effort to Make the City Better
The trend of increased vehicle miles traveled undermines safety initiatives, pollution reduction efforts and the traffic mitigation of congestion pricing, a new report makes clear.
October 22, 2025
Zivarts: How ‘Week Without Driving’ Is Having An Impact
Needing to drive in a car-dependent society is not some sort of moral failure. A one-week teach-in can help elected officials see that.
August 5, 2025
Car Harms Monday: ‘Car Brain’ is the Demon Spawn of Car Dependency
Our policies, our budgets and our cultural narratives assume everyone can and does drive. That's car brain.
May 12, 2025
Trump’s ‘EV Mandate’ Does Not Exist. But Car Dependency Does — And We Can End It
The new president has sworn to unravel Biden's EV plans. But would they have been enough to decarbonize the transportation sector without confronting how much Americans drive?
January 27, 2025
Urban Banning: Single-Family Districts Exempted from ‘Transit-Oriented Development’
"Exempting single-family from transit oriented development makes the least sense from a planning perspective," said one housing expert.
November 26, 2024
When Car Dependency Meets Climate Disaster
How does car dependency make weathering a storm harder, and what can we do about it? We sat down with two experts from the Urban Institute to find out.
October 16, 2024
Car Ownership is Keeping Americans From Financial Stability
As car costs continue to surge, American drivers are taking drastic measures to stay on the road — with troubling societal implications.
March 25, 2024
The Brake Podcast: How Many People Does Car Culture Kill, Exactly?
One in 32 people around the world die from car crashes, car-related air pollution, and car-related lead exposure every year. But even the astonishing number doesn't tell the whole story.
March 12, 2024
All The Ways That Cars Harm Communities (Well, Almost All…)
A new study seeks to quantify everything car culture costs us. Yet there are still more ways that auto-centrism hurts us all.
March 6, 2024
Why Democrats and Republicans Alike Keep Expanding Highways
It’s not too late for their state to chart a better path forward — but politics gets in the way.
September 14, 2023
