Freeway Exit

Best of KPBS Podcasts - Freeway Exit & ScreenTime

Best of KPBS Podcasts brings the best of KPBS storytelling to our listeners. Each episode features curated highlights from across the KPBS podcast lineup, paired with conversations with the producers and hosts. This episode features the podcasts Freeway Exit & ScreenTime

The Finest: The legacy of San Diego's streetcars

Long before San Diego became defined by freeways, parking shortages and long commutes, electric streetcars connected the region's urban core to beaches, business districts and growing neighborhoods more than 100 years ago.

• Transcript

BONUS: "Life After Cars” (w/ The War on Cars)

What would society look like if people no longer needed their cars? That's the premise of the new book “Life After Cars,” written by Doug Gordon and Sarah Goodyear.

BONUS: Abundance in transportation

California needs better public transit. But building new bus and rail lines is difficult and expensive here. A new report says to make things easier, the state needs to get out of its own way.

BONUS: Freeways and loneliness

Urban highways are preventing us from meeting our neighbors and building community, according to a landmark new study. Luca Aiello, professor of data science at the IT University of Copenhagen, shares his research into the impact of freeways on social networks. The findings are important not just for our right to pursue happiness, but also for our pocketbooks. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2408937122

BONUS: Sizing up California's freeway budget

In a lean budget year, California has shrunk the size of its climate investments while still spending hundreds of millions of dollars on freeway expansions. Carter Rubin, director of state transportation advocacy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, joins the podcast to talk about his research into the state's mixed priorities in transportation spending. Research on HOV/toll lanes: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-04/18RD022.pdf

Port of Entry: The Right to The City

Traffic is a huge problem in Tijuana and San Diego. If you drive around during the day, you will most certainly be caught in a traffic jam. So should we build more roads to ease traffic congestion? In this crossover episode with Port of Entry, KPBS' border podcast, we explore what is keeping residents of Tijuana from a better quality of life. The answer took us by surprise. If you enjoyed this episode of Port of Entry, check out their current season on Visionaries and Shapers of the Borderlands. You can check out their catalog for older episodes here or wherever you get your podcasts!

• Transcript

BONUS: Freeways are bigger in Texas

City Limits, a new book from journalist Megan Kimble, chronicles the emergence of a modern wave of freeway revolts in Texas. As the Texas Department of Transportation seizes more and more land to widen its highways, people who had never considered themselves urbanists or activists are joining the movement. This time they're not just fighting displacement, pollution and segregation — they're also fighting climate catastrophe.

BONUS: Reconnecting Communities (with David Alvarez)

The California legislature is starting a conversation about how to reunite communities that were divided by freeways. For Assemblymember David Alvarez, the issue is personal. Alvarez grew up in San Diego's Barrio Logan, one of the most polluted communities in California. He's now chair of a special committee dedicated to correcting the kind of racial and environmental injustices his family has faced for decades.

BONUS: Blowing the whistle on widening freeways

Former Caltrans executive Jeanie Ward-Waller shares her story of getting fired after speaking out against a freeway project near Sacramento. She says Caltrans is driven by a "mindless impulse to add more freeway lanes," and that reform-minded people at the agency are often sidelined and dismissed.

BONUS: In defense of freeways

Gustavo Dallarda, director of Caltrans District 11, explains some of the engineering behind freeways and makes the case that they provide an efficient means of travel compared to surface roads. He acknowledges the need to reduce vehicle travel, but says infrastructure doesn't get built overnight and that our transition away from cars and freeways has to be slow and gradual.

• Transcript

BONUS: Do freeways really save us time?

Our methods for measuring the economic impact of freeways are rooted in 1950s logic. A new report, "Divided by Design" from Smart Growth America, uncovers just how much they leave out. Co-author Beth Osborne says we tend to overestimate how much time and money we'll save on freeways. And we ignore the ways in which freeways can sometimes make trips longer. Divided by Design: https://smartgrowthamerica.org/program/divided-by-design/ Explainer on the value of time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_KLleAqjBs

• Transcript

BONUS: Engineering streets like freeways

Chuck Marohn, the founder of Strong Towns, has a bone to pick with the field of engineering: Too often, it uses freeway design standards on local streets. Marohn spoke with Andrew as he was promoting his book "Confessions of a Recovering Engineer." He argues engineers need to stop prioritizing speed over safety, and that cities need to stop trying to “solve” congestion.

• Transcript

BONUS: Hasan Ikhrata

As the CEO of San Diego County's transportation planning agency, SANDAG, Hasan Ikhrata has done more than anyone else to shake up the conversation around our freeways. Ikhrata has pushed his own board of directors to let go of long standing plans to widen certain freeways. And he's jump-started a debate over charging drivers by the mile to fund a more sustainable system.

• Transcript

The road ahead

San Diego is closer to removing a freeway than you might realize. Caltrans begins experimenting with temporary freeway closures that allow people to walk and bike on them. The vision for a freeway lid over Interstate 5 takes a small step forward. But the work of reconnecting communities is expensive. What is the price we're willing to pay for environmental justice?

• Transcript

Decommission

A devastating earthquake forces San Francisco to consider the radical notion of tearing a freeway down. The results are wildly successful: The Embarcadero Freeway is replaced with a transit and pedestrian-friendly boulevard. The Central Freeway's removal revitalizes a neighborhood and improves safety. Some activists want to finish what the earthquake started.

• Transcript

Reparations

Caltrans takes a new approach to freeways by trying to win support from nearby residents. The community wins new amenities that come along with the freeway, but is still recovering from the damage it inflicted. Another community divided by Interstate 5 poses a greater challenge: How do we heal the wounds caused by freeways? Documentary on SR-15 freeway in City Heights: https://www.cityheightscdc.org/stories/visions-to-victoryan-award-winning-documentary

• Transcript

The freeway revolts

The mid-century freeway boom sparks a backlash. Communities across the country that are slated to be demolished for freeways start fighting back. In San Diego, activists organize a campaign to stop a highway from destroying their predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood. Changes in Sacramento also push Caltrans in a new direction. San Diego Magazine article on Cabrillo Freeway widening: https://cdn.kpbs.org/93/87/314066f54748938933f0147bf169/163-widening-article.pdf

• Transcript

A feat of (social) engineering

The American freeway is born in a time of intense optimism around the promise of the automobile. President Eisenhower sees the country's dilapidated road network as a barrier to economic growth and national defense. Jacob Dekema, the father of San Diego's freeway network, sees freeways as lifesavers. How did our optimism blind us to the freeway's dark side? Magic Highway USA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo4-rYNGEwE&

• Transcript

San Diego's first freeway

An architect has a radical idea for San Diego's oldest freeway, SR-163, which cuts through Balboa Park. An environmental justice activist dreams of someday reconnecting her community that was divided by Interstate 5. If San Diego is serious about its goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, how will our relationship with freeways have to change?

• Transcript