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Has this ever happened to you: you’re sitting in your car, engine idling, watching the cars in front of you and behind you move only inches at a time, and you find yourself wishing you had opted for public transportation? So why didn’t you? Were you deterred by the time you imagined it would take? Did the transport system’s notorious unreliability make you nervous? Or perhaps the prospect of sitting on a dingy seat next to a smelly stranger kept you behind the wheel of your own car, where you know you’re in control? Then again, how “in control” can you be – you’ve only moved a foot in the last five minutes, haven’t you?
This week on Sea Change Radio our guest is Tom Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt is the author of Traffic, one of the New York Times’ Most Notable Books of 2008 and he recently wrote an article for Slate exploring the “Best Way To Get Users To Embrace Mass Transit.” Vanderbilt and host Alex Wise chat about the marvels and the miseries of both public transportation and driving, and muse over what it takes to get us out of our cars and onto the train.