Car Dependence
Streetsblog Basics
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
Mounting Transportation and Housing Costs Devour Household Budgets
On Monday we wrote that Americans can't afford a transportation bill that locks households into the expenses of car dependence. Yesterday the Center for Neighborhood Technology hammered the point home, releasing new data showing how communities are getting less and less affordable nationwide.
February 29, 2012
Maps Show Striking Link Between Car Commuting and Obesity
Check out these two maps, the first showing obesity rates (by county) in the United States and the second showing the percentage of commuters who travel by car (via Planetizen).
January 17, 2012
Trapped By Car Dependence: Stories From Commute-Battered Americans
Meet Darren Flenoy, a Bay Area security guard who lives 40 miles from work. Gas costs him about $500 a month. His car payment is another $500. On top of that, he spends $80 per month on insurance and $180 on tolls.
October 31, 2011
Time to See Older Drivers Through Dry Eyes
“Have you cried at your desk at work yet today? Would you like to?” Time Magazine asked last week, inviting its readers to indulge in emotion on behalf of an Iowa couple whose story went viral last week. Gordon and Norma Yeager died as the result of a car crash, the same way about 630 Americans die per week but with scant media attention. The Yeagers, after seven decades of marriage, passed away holding hands in the hospital.
October 24, 2011
Has America Passed Peak Car Use, or Is It Just a Cyclical Decline?
Fast Company is the latest media outlet to trumpet the decline of driving, with a look at the phenomenon dubbed "peak car use."
July 8, 2011
The Once and Future Auto Bailouts
You’d think the Obama campaign had confused Michigan and Ohio with Iowa and New Hampshire. As his 2012 Republican challengers flooded early primary states last month, the President instead headed to where he could stand beside beaming auto executives and watch proud workers toiling on once-idle assembly lines. The Obama administration and the industry have been making a hard media push this summer, celebrating the auto bailout as a big win — for the politicians who supported it, for the economy that they claim needed it, and for the taxpayer who still begrudges it.
July 6, 2011
Food Deserts: Another Way the Deck Is Stacked Against Car-Free Americans
Slate has posted this map to illustrate the concentration of "food deserts," where large numbers of people don't have access to fresh food. The USDA considers households more than a mile from a supermarket and without access to a car to be in food deserts, often with only convenience-store junk food for nourishment. In 2009, the agency found 2.3 million of these households. Here, Slate shows the preponderance of those households in Appalachia and the Deep South, and on Indian reservations.
January 5, 2011
Driven to the Poorhouse: How Car Title Lenders Prey on Americans
The cheerful come-ons seem more cheesy than sleazy -- “Looking for a New Way to Borrow?” “Apply Now-Get Cash Today!” “Go From $0 to Cash in Less Than an Hour” -- but these are not the friendly offers of local diversified banks. They are the insidious pitches of companies that do one thing very well: make car title loans to Americans desperate for cash.
November 10, 2010
Electric Car Fever and Polar Bear Halos
Over the next few months, electric cars will start rolling out of showrooms and onto American roads. They’ve been a long time coming.
October 12, 2010