The War on Cars

EPISODE 78: 311 is Joke with Alex Pareene

Added 2022-01-11 14:12:18 +0000 UTC

Hello War on Cars supporters!

For our first regular episode of 2022, we were pleased to talk with journalist Alex Pareene. Alex has been one of our favorite writers for a long time. You may know him from his work in The New Republic and The Atlantic, but he was also an editor of Gawker back in the day. He's worth reading on any subject, but lately he's been on a tear about cars and traffic safety, which presented the perfect opportunity to finally have him on the podcast.

We had such a great time talking to Alex that our conversation went on for over an hour and we had to leave a lot on the cutting room floor. Look for the rest of our interview with him in an upcoming ad-free bonus episode just for Patreon supporters.

Thanks for listening!

- Aaron, Sarah and Doug

NOTE: This is a general-release episode so it's available wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen to it here in your browser or check out these instructions on how to find and use your private RSS audio link from Patreon. You can also use the Patreon app.

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EPISODE 78: 311 is a Joke with Alex Pareene

Alex Pareene, a contributing editor to The New Republic and the author of The AP (Alex Pareene) Newsletter, joins the podcast to talk about his recent run of stories on cars, parking and the competition for scarce space on city streets. We discuss 311 — the non-emergency phone number for accessing municipal services — and what it tells us about how government works (or doesn’t work). What message are police sending when they fail to enforce illegal parking? As far as driving is concerned, does anything go? And how does Elon Musk’s insistence on beta-testing Full Self-Driving on public streets relate to it all?

LINKS:

Subscribe to Alex Pareene’s newsletter, The AP

Read Alex in The New Republic

Listen to “The Politics of Everything”

“The Lawlessness that Cops Ignore” (The Atlantic)

“Losing a Streetfight to Elon Musk” (The AP)

“How the NYPD Neglects 311 Reports about Driver Misconduct” (Streetsblog)

Read “Fighting Traffic” by Peter Norton

Get official War on Cars merch at our store.

Purchase books by podcasts guests from The War on Cars library at Bookshop.org.

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