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You may know the actor Nick Offerman as the gruff city parks director Ron Swanson on the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation or from his turn as the survivalist Bill on the HBO series The Last of Us, but he also has a lot to say about how people get around, share public space, and relate to nature. In his book Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside, Nick takes a wry and philosophical approach to our stewardship of Planet Earth, the value of working with one’s hands, and the many problems with the massive agricultural systems on which we all depend. Nick Offerman joins The War on Cars to talk about his experience biking for transportation in New York City and Los Angeles, his views on masculinity and conspicuous consumption, and why the best way to explore an unfamiliar city is at the speed of a good walk.
This episode is produced with support from Cleverhood. Listen to the episode for the latest 15% discount code.
***Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive access to ad-free versions of all our episodes, special bonus content and stickers!***
LINKS:
Visit Nick Offerman's official site and follow him on Twitter.

Read Nick Offerman’s Call of the Candy-Ass in Outside Online.
Support independent booksellers and buy Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside as well as books by other guests of The War on Cars at our official Bookshop.org page.
Read Pastoral Song by James Rebanks. (Published in the UK as English Pastoral.)
Watch the film Sacred Cow, narrated by Nick Offerman. And read the book!
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Pick up official podcast tees and other merch in our official store.
This episode was edited by Ali Lemer. It was recorded by Felix Levine. Our theme music is by Nathaniel Goodyear.
TheWarOnCars.org
 

In episode 103, we looked at depictions of cyclists in movies such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin and TV shows such as Arrested Development and asked, "Why Does Hollywood Hate Bikes?" Our co-host Sarah Goodyear unfortunately missed that discussion, so in this exclusive bonus just for patrons of The War on Cars she brings some recent pop culture specimens to examine: the NBC sitcom American Auto and the BBC soap The Split. We also respond to listener comments about some of the movies and television shows we missed last time out — including Stranger Things, The Goonies, and Breaking Away — and follow up on some new bike-related developments on the feel-good show Ted Lasso.
In this teaser, Sarah offers some thoughts on American Auto starring Ana Gasteyer.
***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.***




 

All car trips begin and end with a place to park, making a parking space “nothing less than the link between driving and life itself.” In his new book, Paved Paradise, Henry Grabar, a staff writer at Slate, argues that the need to accommodate the short- and long-term storage of countless big metal boxes on wheels is a determinative force in the design of cities, the shape of buildings, the cost of housing and even the health of our planet. Deeply reported, highly entertaining and filled with colorful stories and characters from the worlds of affordable housing development, government and even organized crime, Paved Paradise is a refreshing look at a subject that explains the world.
This episode is produced with support from Harvard University Graduate School of Design Executive Education and Radpower Bikes.
***Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive access to ad-free versions of all our episodes, special bonus content and stickers.***
LINKS:
Buy Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World by Henry Grabar and other books by podcast guests at The War on Cars Bookshop.org page.
Follow Henry Grabar on Twitter.
Read more from Henry at Slate.
Pick up official podcast tees, sticker packs and other merch in our official store.
Attend Micromobility Europe in Amsterdam in June or Micromobility America in San Francisco in October and save 20% on tickets by using the links. 
This episode was edited by Doug Gordon. It was recorded at the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio by Josh Wilcox. Our theme music is by Nathaniel Goodyear.
TheWarOnCars.org

Weird things happen when you're an investigative reporter trying to cover an international oil giant like ExxonMobil. Your plane tickets are mysteriously canceled, your hotel room gets broken into, and the local reporter that you've hired is offered a lucrative job to work on something else. In this special bonus episode for War on Cars Patreon subscribers, investigative journalist and podcaster Amy Westervelt tells us what it was like to report and produce the new season of her podcast, Drilled. It's called "Light Sweet Crude." In it, she takes us to the tiny South American nation Guyana where, in 2015, ExxonMobil discovered one of the world’s largest off-shore oil reserves. Seemingly overnight, Guyana began transforming from an international environmental leader and model of sustainable development to one of the world's fastest growing petrostates.

***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive, ad-free bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.***

In Huntsville, Alabama, it’s illegal to play ball on any street, alley, or sidewalk. In Lewiston, Maine, pedestrians must keep to the right half of the crosswalk while crossing the street. And in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, bicyclists are strictly prohibited from any kind of “fancy riding.” If these laws sound vague, arbitrary, and difficult to enforce, well, that might just be the point. In a groundbreaking new report, urban planner Charles Brown painstakingly identifies the vast array of transportation-related laws that are used almost exclusively to limit the mobility and freedom of Black Americans while providing no real benefit to public safety. Brown gives this repressive policy regime a name. He calls it: Arrested Mobility.
This episode is produced with support from Harvard University Graduate School of Design Executive Education and Cleverhood.
*** Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive access to ad-free versions of all our episodes, special bonus content and stickers! ***
LINKS:

Follow Charles Brown on Twitter.

Read the report: Arrested Mobility: Barriers to Walking, Biking, and E-Scooter Use in Black Communities in the United States.

Subscribe and listen to the Arrested Mobility podcast
Equitable Cities is an urban planning, public policy, and research firm working at the intersection of transportation, health, and equity. 
How Bike/Walk Laws ‘Arrest’ the Mobility of Black Americans (Streetsblog)

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Pick up official podcast tees and other merch in our official store.
Buy books from podcast guests and find other great recommendations at our Bookshop.org page.
Attend Micromobility Europe in Amsterdam in June or Micromobility America in San Francisco in October and save 20% on tickets by using the links. 
This episode was edited by Ali Lemer. It was recorded at the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio by Josh Wilcox. Our theme music is by Nathaniel Goodyear.
Patreon supporters who want to listen to this ad-free version of the episode on Apple Podcasts or another podcast app should check out these instructions on how to find and use your private RSS audio link from Patreon. You can also use the Patreon app or listen in your browser.
TheWarOnCars.org

On our last episode, we mentioned the brief cameo that a Brompton folding bicycle had on season 2 of Ted Lasso and why that bicycle model in particular was a very deliberate choice meant to convey something special about the character who rides it, Dr. Sharon Fieldstone.
 

For this bonus episode just for Patreon supporters, we talk with Brompton's Managing Director, Will Butler-Adams, about the chance meeting that brought him to the iconic British bicycle company, where the bike industry fits into safe streets advocacy, his thoughts on building cities for people and why his company's iconic and quirky machine is the "Swiss Army knife of bikes."
 
***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive, ad-free bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.***