Ad Nauseam

Traffic Congestion: Sponsored by Your Local Media

Going through my morning headline round-up I clicked on ABC Channel 7's story, Should There be Tolls in Manhattan? While my eye was being drawn to the giant, red "Lukoil: We Love Cars" ad banner (What genius came up with, "Traffic: Sponsored by Lukoil?"), an animated little Gen Y hipster wearing a Toyota.com t-shirt jumped out in front of the text urging me to click him to hear more about Toyota's gargantuan new FJ Cruiser. The automobile and oil industry ad assault was so aggressive, I never even got around to reading the news story about how New York City is losing billions of dollars every year due to overwhelming gridlock. Is anyone still wondering why traffic reduction is a tough sell?

By Aaron Naparstek

11:00 AM EST on December 5, 2006

Going through my morning headline round-up I clicked on ABC Channel 7’s story, Should There be Tolls in Manhattan? While my eye was being drawn to the giant, red “Lukoil: We Love Cars” ad banner (What genius came up with, “Traffic: Sponsored by Lukoil?”), an animated little Gen Y hipster wearing a Toyota.com t-shirt jumped out in front of the text urging me to click him to hear more about Toyota’s gargantuan new FJ Cruiser. The automobile and oil industry ad assault was so aggressive, I never even got around to reading the news story about how New York City is losing billions of dollars every year due to overwhelming gridlock. Is anyone still wondering why traffic reduction is a tough sell?

Aaron Naparstek

Aaron Naparstek is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparstek's journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. He was also one of the original cast members of the "War on Cars" podcast. You can find more of his work on his website.

Ad Nauseam | Car Culture | Congestion Pricing | Studies & Reports | Transit

Streetsblog has migrated to a new comment system. New commenters can register directly in the comments section of any article. Returning commenters: your previous comments and display name have been preserved, but you'll need to reclaim your account by clicking "Forgot your password?" on the sign-in form, entering your email, and following the verification link to set a new password — this is required because passwords could not be carried over during the migration. For questions, contact tips@streetsblog.org.