PREVIEW: Hanging Out with Jonathan Maus of Bike Portland
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What you're about to hear is an excerpt from a conversation with Jonathan Moss of Bike Portland.
If you want to hear the whole thing, you can become a Patreon supporter by going to patreon.com
slash TheWarOnCarsPod.
I heard you say something about, there was a chapter in the book that was really life-changing
for you, the chapter about nature.
Yeah, I think a lot of people might not make that connection.
I've got to say, one of the funniest things about the book that I appreciate
is how direct the chapter titles are.
Literally, chapter names, cars ruin childhood, cars ruin nature, cars are killing us, cars
ruin society, cars are unjust.
You're very reasonable with these.
But the nature one, right, that's what you said.
So tell me more about how that was such an important chapter for you.
I'm the kind of person that I really love being in nature, despite the fact that
I'm a native New Yorker, really love the urban life.
I still have spent a lot of my time pursuing the outdoors and as wild as possible.
And so I really value wild space.
And one of the reasons that I think this movement is so important is land use and
preventing greenfield development and endless sprawl that takes up all the
space that we have and kills everything.
So I mean, I already was aware that that land use pattern of endless
suburban expansion was really bad for natural areas.
But it wasn't until I read Ben Goldfarb's book, Crossings, which I highly recommend
to everybody that I started to sort of open my mind to all the different
ways that cars are hurting nature.
And then we also interviewed Paul Donald, who wrote a book called
Trafication.
He's a UK researcher.
And he too really breaks down all the ways that this is happening.
And it's just really pretty much everything that cars do.
I mean, the ways that cars strike animals, including insects.
I don't know about you, but when I was much younger and you would drive
through the countryside, there would be a lot of bugs on the windshield.
That doesn't happen as much anymore.
It's not because they invented something special about cars that makes
the bugs fly off of them.
It's because there aren't as many bugs.
And that's actually really disturbing, right?
But it's also just the roads themselves are an incredibly
onerous burden for the landscape to bear.
Not only do they have fumes coming off of them.
Not only do they have noise coming off of them.
Not only do they have runoff coming off of them.
But they also divide habitats and create genetic islands that
reduce genetic diversity, which of course is even more important
in the New York climate change.
And for species to be able to move around is also more important.
And roads are just constantly being built all over the world.
And I really started putting together the pieces,
the damage that we're doing.
And I think that there's a figure that there is something
like 70% fewer animals in the world than there were in the 1970s.
And roads have a big thing to do with that.
And Paul Donald in his book and in his interview with us
really argued that cars are perhaps the thing most
responsible for that decline.
And I think people just don't realize it.
And the poignancy is how do most of us access nature
because there's no good access to nature
by public transportation.
For the most part, we access it by driving.
And even those of us who really try to leave no trace,
we're getting to the trailhead on a road.
And that road itself is damaging.
So I guess it's a little bit overwhelming emotionally,
like so many things that have to do with the destruction
of our natural world and the climate crisis,
especially to say, wow, everything about this
is killing life on this planet.
And that's a big thing to think about.
But for me, it's now something that I can't stop thinking about.
I think that's the thing that was most surprising to me
in researching the book was just how totally terrifying
that is.
Yeah, a lot of people have asked us,
are you more or less radicalized now having written the book?
And I will say that I am more radicalized
because there were things in doing the research that
surprised me.
And Sarah did much of the research for the nature
chapter and just in reading what she wrote
through the normal process of us finishing the book.
I was just like, my jaw, my mouth was on the floor
because we don't think about the very expansive ways in which
cars really do ruin everything because those same people who
might say, OK, there are 70% fewer animals on this planet
than there were 50 years ago would make the connection
to agriculture and the fact that we've
destroyed the rainforest to raise cattle.
But they would not, for a minute,
say that the interstate highway that
gets the agriculture workers to their jobs
and gets the meat from the meatpacking plant
to the grocery store is responsible as well.
And so part of what we're trying to do with the book
is to get people to make those connections
and to see cars as this determinative force in our lives,
whether you drive or not.
How did you put it in the book, you said the goal is to
make someone see the water?
What was that?
I didn't get it right.
There's a Marshall McLuhan quote about, you know,
the fish knows nothing of the water, right?
It's an old joke that the fish are swimming along
and another fish comes by and says,
water sure is nice today and the other two fish
are like, what's water?
And that's sort of how we see cars, you know,
they're just the background.
We kind of joke in the book that you're born
and you're put in a car seat and driven home
and then a funeral procession takes you
in a hearse to the cemetery
and everything is driving in between.
And so much so that we just don't question it.
It's this huge force.
It dictates where we live, how we live,
who we socialize with, how we access food,
how we access medical care, education, employment,
all this kind of stuff.
So we want people to see that this was built,
it can be unbuilt and you got to start
just getting people to see the problem
is the first step towards solving it.
About this episode
Jonathan Maus of Bike Portland discusses the profound environmental impact of cars, highlighting how roads and car culture contribute to habitat destruction, species decline, and urban sprawl. He reflects on insights from the book 'Crossings' and researcher Paul Donald, emphasizing how cars harm nature in ways often overlooked, such as reducing insect populations and fragmenting ecosystems. The conversation challenges listeners to recognize cars as a pervasive force shaping society and the environment, urging awareness as a crucial step toward change.
Original notes
***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, plus ad-free versions of regular episodes, merch discounts, presale tickets to live shows, and more, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.***
We were out in Portland, Oregon, for our book tour in November, and spent a lot of great time hanging out with Jonathan Maus, the legendary founder of Bike Portland. We sat down with Jonathan in his backyard shed/studio and talked about how a great bike city can get even better, the importance of transit, and how media is an important part of the movement for more human cities.
Order our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile. And catch us on tour in 2026: Tickets for live shows are on sale now!
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