Imagine our surprise when, a couple of months back, we saw an Instagram post from tattoo artist Lana Bosak showing a tattoo of a “Cars Ruin Cities” variable-message sign. We had to know whose thigh that ink was on. Before long, we tracked down bike racer and advocate Risa Hustad, who told us the story behind her decision to make this message part of her body forever.
We’ve condensed and edited this interview for space and clarity.
Hi, Risa. Why don't you tell us a little about where you live and what you do.
I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I’m in my home office right now. And I have elected to make myself mac and cheese for lunch and brought it into my office, which is the reason that my dog would also like to be in my office.
I know you just ran for a seat on the Minneapolis Park Board, although you didn’t win the election.
Yeah, that was a very cool experience. It meant that I got to talk to a lot of different people, which is fun. Exhausting, but fun. I work for a bicycle company in the metro, and I come from a long line of stinky bikers turned advocates. So for better or for worse, I have become known less for being a stinky biker and more for advocacy work around transportation and environmental justice, which sounds a lot nicer than “stinky biker who rides around wondering why people have to take up the whole road with their cars.”
Yes, that sounds much more polite. But I can see from your Instagram that you do get dirty on the bike. You get muddy. You race cyclocross?
Oh yeah. I both ride bikes for transportation and I race bikes for fun, or because I need coping mechanisms for surviving capitalism. And my bike works for both of those things. I race cyclocross, which now is a sanctioned type of bicycle racing that happens under a certain set of parameters that are very tight. It's 45 minutes of just absolute as-hard-as-you-can-go pain. And I like that.
So tell us about the tattoo. We saw it when we did a search of the #CarsRuinCities hashtag on Instagram and found the tattoo artist who did it and put it on their feed. And then I figured out that it was you. And so we had to talk to you.
I had been considering getting inked for a long time. As a person who wanted to get their first tattoo, I wanted something unique to me. And initially, this idea of having the “Cars Ruin Cities” sign put on my body seemed really on the nose. But the more I thought about it, and the more I thought about how it would look, the more the idea grew on me. Finally I just scheduled an appointment.
I literally saved the image from the Gothamist article about it. And I was just like, Hey, can this go on the human body? And I got an email back [from tattoo artist Lana Bosak] that says, “Cool, I'm into it. The questions I have are what size, what location, what style and what color do you want it in?” And now the rest is history. Now it's emblazoned on my thigh.
How did you see that Gothamist article?
That time period where the anti-driver messages were making their way around urbanist Twitter, especially bike Twitter, I think that I probably saw them through that. And I couldn't get enough of them.
On the one hand, it's very tongue in cheek, because you’re using a messaging platform that's intended for people driving cars, and which even sometimes limits the ability to travel by people not driving in cars. A lot of times, these message boards, they end up in bike lanes, they end up blocking bus lanes. But instead, they have this message that is definitively, “Hey, you should stop driving your car right now. Your car harms people.” And it's just so perfect.
I felt almost too hipster getting something so niche put on my body. But after thinking about it, it occurred to me, this is exactly what I believe to be true. This exactly aligns with my worldview. I'm not a person who hates drivers. I am a driver sometimes. And I'm not a person who hates cities. I'm just a person who wants us to live in places that are designed for the people that spend time in them.
And this is perfect and I just want it on me forever.
Note: If permanently altering your body with an anti-car message is outside of your comfort zone, check out our online store where you can get “Cars Ruin Cities” stickers, t-shirts and other official War on Cars merch.
🎙 Our latest episodes
Ep. 79: The End of Uber with Cory Doctorow
Remember when Uber, the globe-straddling taxi-hailing app, was going to revolutionize transportation, transform cities, and lead us to our glorious robot-car future? That wasn’t so long ago. So, what happened? Where did it all go? Cory Doctorow thinks he knows. Doctorow is a prolific non-fiction author, sci-fi novelist, and technology activist and he has been a keen observer and critic of Uber for years now. “Uber,” Doctorow writes, “is a bezzle. Every bezzle ends. And Uber’s time is up.” Plus: Reality has a well known anti-car bias.
🔓 Just for Patreon Supporters: Cars as a Virus with Hermann Knoflacher
Professor Hermann Knoflacher, 81, is the head of the Institute of Transportation at the Vienna University of Technology. Long before the current global pandemic, he compared cars to a virus. It’s a provocative analogy, but Knoflacher makes a compelling case. And rather than searching for vaccines and other ways to fight this particular threat, humanity has actively helped the spread of cars, much to the detriment of the built environment, children’s health and safety and even our future on this planet. Learn more about Professor Knoflacher, including why he invented the gehzeug (pictured) in the 1970s.
We also released a bit more of our conversation with journalist Alex Pareene, featured in episode 78, so become a Patreon supporter for access to all of our exclusive ad-free bonus content.
💧 New Patreon Reward: Water Bottles
Due to popular demand, we’ve added new Patreon tiers and rewards, including official War on Cars water bottles. These leak-proof 26-oz Specialized Purist bottles fit in standard water-bottle cages and are perfect for on and off the bike. No matter your contribution level, Patreon supporters receive exclusive access to ad-free bonus content as well as special discounts on merch, advance notice about live shows and more. Enlist today!
📖 What We’re Reading: “Away with all Cars”
Written by someone known only as “Mr. Social Control” of the “Pedestrian Freedom Front,” Away with all Cars: A Sincere and Zealous Protestation Against the Overabundance of Motorised Carriages Together with Some Suggestions Towards the Elimination of this Scourge in the Form of an Open Letter to All Motorists Being at Once Manifesto and Manifestation of the Outlawed Pedestrian Freedom Front, is a pamphlet that was published in London in the 1990s. While that epic subtitle won’t fit in most podcast apps, the pamphlet reads like a mission statement in The War on Cars:
There are large piece of metal hurtling around at high speed in residential areas. They are such a menace to life and limb that every journey made by any other means is chiefly spent dodging these monstrous objets. They are the single biggest cause of atmospheric pollution and global warming. They are the largest market for the warmongering oil industry. Their noise is the noise of the city… an illusion has to be maintained that nobody sees anything wrong with the ever increasing number of cars.
The pamphlet gets its title from this item in the January 11, 1976 edition of the Sunday Mirror:
“Things all got too much for author Kudno Mojesic. He was arrested in the street outside his Belgrade home attacking cars with an axe, yelling ‘Away with all cars, they are the devil’s work!’”
We’ll try to find out more about this incredible pamphlet and the mysterious Mr. Social Control. For now, you can read the pamphlet at the Internet Archive.
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SPONSORED POST: Now through the end of February, listeners of The War on Cars can receive 20% off anything in the Cleverhood store, including their new line of rain capes for kids. (Pictured on our intern, above.) Cleverhood donates 5% of their revenue to non-profit advocacy organizations working to make streets safer, sustainable, and equitable. Visit Cleverhood.com and enter code ONELESSCAR at checkout to snag your discount on the best rain gear for walking and cycling.
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