The Importance of Livable Streets with Bruce Appleyard
The War on Cars
The War on Cars, LLC
4.9 • 937 Ratings
🗓️ 20 January 2026
⏱️ 53 minutes
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Summary
We talked with Dr. Bruce Appleyard, who has spent a lifetime thinking about what we mean when we talk about liveable streets—and why it is so important that we build our cities with human beings in mind, first and foremost. Bruce's research makes an appearance in Life After Cars, and his father, Donald Appleyard, was a legend in this field for his work that led to the indispensable book Livable Streets, published in 1981. In 2020 Bruce published Livable Streets 2.0, which brings his father's book up to date while preserving its core principles and teachings. We talked with him about how streets can foster (or erode) social ties in our communities, how car-centric infrastructure harms children's ability to navigate, and how we can fulfill what his father called "the promise of our streets."
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | At this time of year, you have to be ready for anything when it comes to the weather. |
| 0:07.0 | From rain, snow, or my least favorite, the dreaded, wintry mix. |
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| 0:17.0 | If it's cold and rainy outside and I have a big winter coat on, I just put the |
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| 0:32.8 | have with me when I'm out and about, it's my rover. And because it comes in an array of bright colors, |
| 0:38.5 | it stands out on those cold, gray winter days. |
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| 0:53.7 | slash war on cars with code happy new year. That's |
| 0:58.8 | cleverhood.com slash war on cars discount code happy new year. The street can either bring us together |
| 1:10.6 | and knit us together or could rip us apart. |
| 1:14.0 | And I think that his research really helped open our eyes to what I also call not just the conflict and the power dynamic of the streets, but also the promise. |
| 1:25.1 | Like what is the promise of our streets? |
| 1:36.2 | Yeah. of the streets, but also the promise. Like, what is the promise of our streets? This is the War on Cars. |
| 1:38.4 | I'm Sarah Goodyear. |
| 1:40.2 | I'm recording this in Brooklyn shortly after returning from the second leg of our book tour. |
| 1:46.3 | It is really good to be home and relaxing for a second. |
| 1:50.4 | I'm going to just get a little business out of the way really quickly before we get to today's guest. |
| 1:57.0 | First of all, you can find us on Patreon at patreon.com slash the war on cars pod if you want to |
| 2:04.1 | support us we really do depend on our patreon supporters so thank you so much to all of you |
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