This is The War on Cars. I'm Doug Gordon. Something we've noted on the podcast before is that if you look at the cities doing the most to reclaim public streets from the automobile

and give it to people, they often have one thing in common.

And that's strong female leadership.

There's Mayor An Hidalgo in Paris and former Mayor Valplent in Montreal, just to name two.

Urban mobility experts, Melissa and Chris Bruntlet, have a new book that highlights this

phenomenon. It's called Women Changing Cities, Global Stories of Urban Transformation, and it's out

now from Reba Press. You might remember the bruntlets from episode 77 of the war on cars,

which ran back in 2021.

That's about their book, Curbing Traffic.

They are also the authors of another book,

Building the Cycling City, The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality.

What you're about to hear is a preview of a bonus episode.

The full version is available exclusively to our Patreon supporters, and you can hear it by signing up at patreon.com slash the War on Cars Pod. Subscriptions start at just $3 per month,

and they come with all kinds of other benefits from free stickers to early access to live shows.

We cannot produce the podcast without your support, so thanks for signing up. So to help you to understand how we came to the stories

and how we developed the content for the book. I want you all to come back

to us to the moment in recent history when everything changed. And I'm sorry if this brings back

some feelings of anxiety for you. But for us, there we go. COVID-19 was really this crisis

is a turning point for a lot of cities around the world.

As they recognized, we can't keep going with the way we're going.

We have to find new ways of using our public spaces to provide that space for physically distance,

enjoyment, outdoors, to make sure people can still move.

...