The War on Cars

BONUS: Cars as a Virus with Hermann Knoflacher

Added 2022-01-05 11:00:04 +0000 UTC

Hello War on Cars supporters!

Perhaps you've seen pictures of a person walking around in a large, wearable wooden frame meant to illustrate the space taken up by one person in a private automobile. That's the gehzeug — or "walkmobile" — and it was invented by the Austrian civil engineer and professor Hermann Knoflacher.

Hermann Knoflacher, 81, is the head of the Institute of Transportation at the Vienna University of Technology. Long before the current global pandemic, Professor Knoflacher compared cars to a virus. It's a provacative analogy but he makes a compelling case. And rather than searching for vaccines and other ways to fight this particular threat, humanity has actively helped the spread of cars, much to the detriment of the built environment, children's health and safety and even our future on this planet.

In this ad-free bonus episode, Doug talks to Professor Knoflacher about why cars are like a virus. They also discuss the fight to remove cars from the center of Vienna, how driving is an addiction, and why playgrounds are a sign that automobiles have more freedom than children.

You can listen to this episode in your browser, but if you want to listen on Apple Podcasts or another podcast app, please check out these instructions on how to find and use your private RSS audio link from Patreon. You can also use the Patreon app.

SHOW NOTES

The Car Is Like A Virus, Says Urban Planner But This Is One Pandemic That Politicians Can Prevent (Carlton Reid, Forbes)

Excellent Uber Ad Distills the Problem With Uber in Crowded Cities (Angie Schmitt, Streetsblog)

"Driving is worse than an addiction" (In German: Deutschlandfunk Kultur)

"The driver is absolutely anti-social" (In German: Manager Magazin)

"Vienna has been my patient for decades" (In German: Kurier)

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