What would our communities look like if getting around did not always mean getting in a car?
At the 2026 NC BikeWalk Transportation Summit in Carolina Beach, we were joined by Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon, cohosts of The War on Cars podcast and co-authors of Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, for a conversation about transportation, cities, and the role cars play in shaping our communities.
Sarah Goodyear is a journalist and author who has covered cities and transportation for publications including Grist, CityLab, and Streetsblog. Doug Gordon is a TV producer, writer, and neighborhood safe streets advocate known online as Brooklyn Spoke. Together, they created The War on Cars in 2018 to explore the impact of cars on culture, society, and the planet, while highlighting the growing movement for safer, more people-focused transportation systems.
Their Summit conversation takes a closer look at what it means to build communities where people have more choices in how they get around. Rather than treating driving as the only practical option, Sarah and Doug explore how transportation, land use, street design, and community priorities can come together to create places where walking, biking, and transit are realistic options for more people.
The conversation also asks us to think beyond individual transportation choices and consider the systems and environments that shape those choices in the first place.
What would change if our communities were designed around access, connection, and freedom of movement rather than around the needs of cars?
