The new episode of the PBS series NOW, Driven to Despair, is a very well-done showcase of the problems and weaknesses of car-dependent planning and far-flung suburbia. The episode introduces us to the Schleighs, a family living in California exurbia in a large four-bedroom house. Mr. Schleigh gets up at 4:00 AM every weekday to begin his 72-mile (that’s 72 miles one way) commute before traffic snarls the freeways. While the kids wonder why daddy’s already gone so early in the day, the family is spending $1,600 a month on transportation. With the adjustable rate mortgage that helped get them their big suburban home about to go up, the family’s feeling pretty desperate.

What follows after that can be fairly described as a 25-minute ode to transit and traditional neighborhood design, showcasing people living in more traditional neighborhood settings and using rail transit regularly to cut time, costs, and stress. One resident of a walkable, bikeable, transit-enabled traditional urbanism community remarks “When gas prices started to skyrocket, we just didn’t really notice. We spend maybe $100 a month on gas.”

It’s a great video, and one of the best examinations of the problems of car dependent planning I’ve seen in a more mainstream media source. Click the link above to watch the whole episode on the PBS web site.