“Traffic” Author Tom Vanderbilt on Leonard Lopate Today at Noon

10:51 AM EDT on July 29, 2008

how_we_drive Author Tom Vanderbilt will be on Leonard Lopate at noon today, WNYC, 93.9 FM. Streetsbloggers will want to tune in.

Vanderbilt takes all of the geeky and arcane transportation studies that we love to bandy about here on Streetsblog -- induced demand, shared space, modal bias, you name it -- he puts them together in one place, filters through the traffic engineering and academic jargon, and the result is Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What it Says About Us). It's a book that deepens our understanding of car culture, transportation policy and human pscychology and belongs on the shelf next to Holly Whyte, Vukan Vuchic, Robert Caro, Donald Shoup, Jan Gehl and that Contested Streets DVD that you still need to invite some friends over to watch with you.

From Lopate's web site:

Americans spend almost as much time driving as they do eating. Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic,explains why we drive the way we do – from road rage, to the psychologyof traffic jams - and tells us what our driving habits reveal about us.

Vanderbilt has already done Fresh Air with Terry Gross if you want to catch that as well.

Aaron Naparstek

AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks 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. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.

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