Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In
Podcast

Talking Headways Podcast: 3 Weeks in the Mountain West Without a Car

4:21 PM EDT on October 8, 2015

podcast icon logo

This week I chat with author and city planner Tim Sullivan about his new book, Ways to the West. The book documents his attempt to take a three week road trip without a car, and his encounters with various planners, city officials, and other characters along the way.

Tim talks about the history of the Western grid network and its origins in the expediency of selling land, as opposed to making great and well-functioning places. The region's river networks and watersheds are ignored by a grid tailored to the car. "We’ve only thought of one network, how cars are getting around," Tim says. We also go back and forth over Salt Lake’s rail expansion and whether walkability should come before or after large capital projects.

I hope you enjoy this discussion of bikes, walking, wagon trains, and wide streets.  Hopefully in the future, you won’t have to wave a surrender flag when crossing one of Salt Lake’s oversized roads.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Why We Care About Some Transportation Tragedies More Than Others

Why do we respond to major transportation disasters with so much urgency — and why don't we count our collective car crash epidemic among them?

March 28, 2024

The Toll of History: MTA Board Approves $15 Congestion Pricing Fee

New York City's first-in-the-nation congestion pricing tolls are one historic step closer to reality after Wednesday's 11-1 MTA board vote. Next step: all those pesky lawsuits.

March 28, 2024

Take Thursday’s Headlines Home, Country Roads

Heat Map reports on why rural Americans are resisting electric vehicles, and why it might not matter much for the climate.

March 28, 2024

Guest Commentary: Traffic Engineers Must Put Safety Over Driver Throughput

No other field would tolerate this level of death and destruction. The tragedy of West Portal is more evidence that the traffic engineering profession is fundamentally broken.

March 27, 2024
See all posts