We’ve all heard the argument that the United States economy is fueled by Americans’ love of driving. But does the data support the narrative that cars connect us to far-flung opportunities to make and spend more money — or has our country’s car-powered productivity revolution actually stalled out?
Today on The Brake, we’re talking to Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute about his new paper on the “mobility-productivity paradox,” and why so many economic indicators actually go down the more we collectively rely on automobiles — and many go up when we build towards a more multimodal future. And then we get into the really hard question: how to get our fellow Americans to believe it.
Litman recently contributed a piece to Streetsblog NYC’s “Car Harms” series, so check it out here.
For an unedited transcript of this conversation (with typos), click here.
