The Importance of Livable Streets with Bruce Appleyard

We talked with Dr. Bruce Appleyard, who has spent a lifetime thinking about what we mean when we talk about liveable streets—and why it is so important that we build our cities with human beings in mind, first and foremost. Bruce's research makes an appearance in Life After Cars, and his father, Donald Appleyard, was a legend in this field for his work that led to the indispensable book Livable Streets, published in 1981. In 2020 Bruce published Livable Streets 2.0, which brings his father's book up to date while preserving its core principles and teachings. We talked with him about how streets can foster (or erode) social ties in our communities, how car-centric infrastructure harms children's ability to navigate, and how we can fulfill what his father called "the promise of our streets." Join The War on Cars on Patreon and listen to exclusive ad-free versions of regular episodes, Patreon-only bonus content, Discord access, invitations to live events, merch discounts and free stickers! Order our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile , out now from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Find us on tour and get tickets at lifeaftercars.com . Thanks to Cleverhood for sponsoring this episode. Listen to this episode for the latest discount code and get the best rain gear for walking and cycling.

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The Importance of Livable Streets with Bruce Appleyard is an episode from The War on Cars by The War on Cars, LLC.

This episode is 52:37 long.

This episode was published on Jan 20, 2026.

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