Freeway Exit

Freeway Exit

Freeways are not free. We pay for them in all kinds of ways — with our tax dollars, our time, our environment and our health. While freeways have enabled huge amounts of economic growth, they've also caused displacement and division. Learn the forgotten history of our urban freeway network, and how decades after that network was finished, some communities are still working to heal the wounds that freeways left behind. As climate change threatens to wreak havoc on our cities, freeways are not just a part of the problem. They can also be part of the solution.

Episodes

BONUS: "Life After Cars” (w/ The War on Cars)

November 21, 2025 • 57 mins
What would society look like if people no longer needed their cars? That's the premise of the new book “Life After Cars,” written by Doug Gordon and Sarah Goodyear.
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BONUS: Abundance in transportation

August 12, 2025 • 24 mins
California needs better public transit. But building new bus and rail lines is difficult and expensive here. A new report says to make things easier, the state needs to get out of its own way.
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BONUS: Freeways and loneliness

April 8, 2025 • 45 mins
Urban highways are preventing us from meeting our neighbors and building community, according to a landmark new study. Luca Aiello, professor of data science at the IT University of Copenhagen, shares his research into the impact of freeways on social networks. The findings are important not just for our right to pursue happiness, but also for our pocketbooks. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2408937122
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BONUS: Sizing up California's freeway budget

August 13, 2024 • 45 mins
In a lean budget year, California has shrunk the size of its climate investments while still spending hundreds of millions of dollars on freeway expansions. Carter Rubin, director of state transportation advocacy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, joins the podcast to talk about his research into the state's mixed priorities in transportation spending. Research on HOV/toll lanes: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files...
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Port of Entry: The Right to The City

June 3, 2024 • 36 mins
Traffic is a huge problem in Tijuana and San Diego. If you drive around during the day, you will most certainly be caught in a traffic jam. So should we build more roads to ease traffic congestion? In this crossover episode with Port of Entry, KPBS' border podcast, we explore what is keeping residents of Tijuana from a better quality of life. The answer took us by surprise. If you enjoyed this episode of Port of Entry, check out...
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BONUS: Freeways are bigger in Texas

April 30, 2024 • 52 mins
City Limits, a new book from journalist Megan Kimble, chronicles the emergence of a modern wave of freeway revolts in Texas. As the Texas Department of Transportation seizes more and more land to widen its highways, people who had never considered themselves urbanists or activists are joining the movement. This time they're not just fighting displacement, pollution and segregation — they're also fighting climate catastrophe.
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BONUS: Reconnecting Communities (with David Alvarez)

December 19, 2023 • 23 mins
The California legislature is starting a conversation about how to reunite communities that were divided by freeways. For Assemblymember David Alvarez, the issue is personal. Alvarez grew up in San Diego's Barrio Logan, one of the most polluted communities in California. He's now chair of a special committee dedicated to correcting the kind of racial and environmental injustices his family has faced for decades.
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BONUS: Blowing the whistle on widening freeways

November 7, 2023 • 33 mins
Former Caltrans executive Jeanie Ward-Waller shares her story of getting fired after speaking out against a freeway project near Sacramento. She says Caltrans is driven by a "mindless impulse to add more freeway lanes," and that reform-minded people at the agency are often sidelined and dismissed.
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BONUS: In defense of freeways

October 17, 2023 • 26 mins
Gustavo Dallarda, director of Caltrans District 11, explains some of the engineering behind freeways and makes the case that they provide an efficient means of travel compared to surface roads. He acknowledges the need to reduce vehicle travel, but says infrastructure doesn't get built overnight and that our transition away from cars and freeways has to be slow and gradual.
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BONUS: Do freeways really save us time?

September 19, 2023 • 32 mins
Our methods for measuring the economic impact of freeways are rooted in 1950s logic. A new report, "Divided by Design" from Smart Growth America, uncovers just how much they leave out. Co-author Beth Osborne says we tend to overestimate how much time and money we'll save on freeways. And we ignore the ways in which freeways can sometimes make trips longer. ...
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BONUS: Engineering streets like freeways

August 15, 2023 • 31 mins
Chuck Marohn, the founder of Strong Towns, has a bone to pick with the field of engineering: Too often, it uses freeway design standards on local streets. Marohn spoke with Andrew as he was promoting his book "Confessions of a Recovering Engineer." He argues engineers need to stop prioritizing speed over safety, and that cities need to stop trying to “solve” congestion.
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BONUS: Hasan Ikhrata

July 25, 2023 • 31 mins
As the CEO of San Diego County's transportation planning agency, SANDAG, Hasan Ikhrata has done more than anyone else to shake up the conversation around our freeways. Ikhrata has pushed his own board of directors to let go of long standing plans to widen certain freeways. And he's jump-started a debate over charging drivers by the mile to fund a more sustainable system.
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The road ahead

June 6, 2023 • 23 mins
San Diego is closer to removing a freeway than you might realize. Caltrans begins experimenting with temporary freeway closures that allow people to walk and bike on them. The vision for a freeway lid over Interstate 5 takes a small step forward. But the work of reconnecting communities is expensive. What is the price we're willing to pay for environmental justice?
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Decommission

May 30, 2023 • 19 mins
A devastating earthquake forces San Francisco to consider the radical notion of tearing a freeway down. The results are wildly successful: The Embarcadero Freeway is replaced with a transit and pedestrian-friendly boulevard. The Central Freeway's removal revitalizes a neighborhood and improves safety. Some activists want to finish what the earthquake started.
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Reparations

May 23, 2023 • 19 mins
Caltrans takes a new approach to freeways by trying to win support from nearby residents. The community wins new amenities that come along with the freeway, but is still recovering from the damage it inflicted. Another community divided by Interstate 5 poses a greater challenge: How do we heal the wounds caused by freeways? Documentary on SR-15 freeway in City Heights: https://www.cityheightscdc.org/stories/visions-to-victoryan-...
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The freeway revolts

May 16, 2023 • 21 mins
The mid-century freeway boom sparks a backlash. Communities across the country that are slated to be demolished for freeways start fighting back. In San Diego, activists organize a campaign to stop a highway from destroying their predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood. Changes in Sacramento also push Caltrans in a new direction. San Diego Magazine article on Cabrillo Freeway widening: https://cdn.kpbs.org/93/87/314066f54748...
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A feat of (social) engineering

May 10, 2023 • 23 mins
The American freeway is born in a time of intense optimism around the promise of the automobile. President Eisenhower sees the country's dilapidated road network as a barrier to economic growth and national defense. Jacob Dekema, the father of San Diego's freeway network, sees freeways as lifesavers. How did our optimism blind us to the freeway's dark side? Magic Highway USA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo4-rYNGEwE&
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San Diego's first freeway

May 9, 2023 • 24 mins
An architect has a radical idea for San Diego's oldest freeway, SR-163, which cuts through Balboa Park. An environmental justice activist dreams of someday reconnecting her community that was divided by Interstate 5. If San Diego is serious about its goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, how will our relationship with freeways have to change?
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Freeway Exit Trailer

April 28, 2023 • 2 mins
Freeways are not free. We pay for them in all kinds of ways — with our tax dollars, our time, our environment and our health. While freeways have enabled huge amounts of economic growth, they've also caused displacement and division. Learn the forgotten history of our urban freeway network, and how decades after that network was finished, some communities are still working to heal the wounds that freeways left behind. As climate ch...
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