Arrested Mobility with Charles Brown
The War on Cars
The War on Cars, LLC
4.9 • 937 Ratings
🗓️ 9 May 2023
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Huntsville, Alabama, it’s illegal to play ball on any street, alley, or sidewalk. In Lewiston, Maine, pedestrians must keep to the right half of the crosswalk while crossing the street. And in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, bicyclists are strictly prohibited from any kind of “fancy riding.” If these laws sound vague, arbitrary, and difficult to enforce, well, that might just be the point. In a groundbreaking new report, urban planner Charles Brown painstakingly identifies the vast array of transportation-related laws that are used almost exclusively to limit the mobility and freedom of Black Americans while providing no real benefit to public safety. Brown gives this repressive policy regime a name. He calls it: Arrested Mobility.
This episode is produced with support from Harvard University Graduate School of Design Executive Education and Cleverhood.
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LINKS:
Follow Charles Brown on Twitter.
Read the report: Arrested Mobility: Barriers to Walking, Biking, and E-Scooter Use in Black Communities in the United States.
Subscribe and listen to the Arrested Mobility podcast
Equitable Cities is an urban planning, public policy, and research firm working at the intersection of transportation, health, and equity.
How Bike/Walk Laws ‘Arrest’ the Mobility of Black Americans (Streetsblog)
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This episode was edited by Ali Lemer. It was recorded at the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio by Josh Wilcox. Our theme music is by Nathaniel Goodyear.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone. If you want to listen to an ad-free version of this episode, go to the |
| 0:05.0 | War on Cars.org, click support us, and become a Patreon subscriber. |
| 0:10.0 | Starting at just $3 per month, we'll send you stickers, you'll get access to exclusive bonus content, |
| 0:16.0 | and you can listen to this and future episodes, Ad Free. |
| 0:22.0 | There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about my choice of clothing, my haircut, my jewelry, how I may be perceived by law enforcement. |
| 0:35.6 | Because when I'm deciding whether or not |
| 0:37.4 | I'm gonna go for a run late at night, |
| 0:40.2 | oftentimes I wanna choose my black hoodie, but the moment I grab that black hoodie, I think about Trayvon Martin. |
| 0:48.4 | I think about Ahmad Aubrey, and I think about my own family members who have been victimized by law enforcement for looking and appearing out of place. |
| 0:59.0 | Welcome to the War on Cars. I'm Aaron Naprastak. With me are my co-hosts Doug Gordon and |
| 1:07.6 | Sarah Goodyear. What's up Aaron? Hello? We have Sarah beaming in from a secret undisclosed exotic locale. |
| 1:16.0 | Are we allowed to disclose? |
| 1:18.0 | I think we can disclose. |
| 1:20.0 | I'm in Europe. I'm in Barcelona. |
| 1:23.0 | Amazing. |
| 1:24.0 | Great city. |
| 1:25.0 | Are you getting us some good Barcelona content? |
| 1:27.0 | I'm getting very good Barcelona content and you all will hear all about it in an upcoming episode, the rides I've taken, the things I've learned, the things I've seen, and I can't wait to share it all but not today not yet. |
| 1:43.0 | The real question is if you're ever coming back. |
| 1:46.0 | Seriously. |
| 1:47.0 | I'm coming back. |
| 1:48.0 | I actually kind of miss the United States right now a little bit. |
... |
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