Recent Streetsblog LA posts about Car Culture

“Buy Here Pay Here” Series Conclusion: We Need to Subsidize Cars for the Poor

By Damien Newton | Nov 3, 2011 | 12 Comments

The Los Angeles Times wraps its three part series on the “Buy Here Pay Here” used car dealers — those that often times con low income people into high interest loans for low quality cars — with a plea for policy to make cars cheaper. For more than a century, efforts to help the disadvantaged […]

Survey: Southern California Voters Want More Transit, Balk at More Highways

By Damien Newton | Nov 2, 2011 | 13 Comments

Even as Los Angeles embraces an expanded transit and bicycle program, the rest of Southern California is still pictured as a sprawling wasteland of highways and subdivisions. However, that’s not what the people that live in the Southland want according to a new survey released by Move L.A., the American Lung Association and the Natural […]

The L.A. Times Powerful Series: “Buy Here, Pay Here” Used Car Dealers

By Damien Newton | Oct 31, 2011 | 4 Comments

If there’s a better example of the completely debilitating impact our car culture has on America’s poorer communities, I can’t think of a better one than the “Buy Here Pay Here” used car dealership industry highlighted by the Los Angeles Times in a special series running this week. The first piece in the series, “A […]

Nice Try, GM.

By Tanya Snyder | Oct 13, 2011 | No Comments

GM pulled its offensive ad that tried to depict biking as uncool in response to complaints from bicycling advocates, but they’re still running this ad, showing what a drag it can be a pedestrian because cars will ruin your day. (Best just to get your own car and ruin someone else’s day.) A GM spokesman […]

Ad Nauseum: Interpreting GM’s Confusing War on Transit and Bicycles

By Damien Newton | Oct 12, 2011 | 14 Comments

(Tanya Snyder takes a somewhat more serious tone at Streetsblog Capitol Hill. Alao, the Times reports that G.M. is pulling the advertisement out of its rotation.- DN) Does reality suck? Apparently to General Motors. Yesterday, the company’s year old advertising campaign to college students received a fresh round of scorn yesterday as Bike Portland published […]

The Real Lessons of Carmageddon – Angelenos Aren’t Idiots, We Have Too Many Highways

By Damien Newton | Jul 18, 2011 | 8 Comments

There are two theories to transportation engineering and traffic. One theory is that traffic is like a raging river. If you block it in one place, it will flow someplace else. If you add more space for it to flow, it will flow more smoothly. This theory has dominated traffic and transportation plans for years. […]

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