Cool stuff inside includes lights in the front speaker enclosures that blink in rhythm with music played on the sound system.

KIA

NEW YORK — This city is a traffic nightmare painted yellow — the hue of aggressively driven taxicabs that dominate its many ruined streets.

It partly explains why Kia Motors chose Brickell Island, a celeb-heavy community in Miami, for the North American introduction of its 2010 Kia Soul urban wagon.

Brickell Island is young and hip. New York is not as young, not as hip.

But the biggest difference is that Brickell Island has smooth, friendly streets. New York City has pitifully few of those.

That’s too bad. In many ways, the new Kia Soul is the perfect urban wagon. It’s small, stretching a bit more than 13 feet. It fits easily into tight spaces, thus relieving the angst of most city parking. It is wonderfully utilitarian.

We couldn’t go to Brickell. But my wife, Mary Anne, and I used the Kia Soul to carry several bulky items, including a couple of floor lamps, up here from Virginia to help a daughter move into a new apartment.

The Kia Soul is wonderfully maneuverable, capable of U-turns on narrow streets without touching a curb left or right.

But therein lies the rub, bump, occasional squeak, rattle and grind. The monstrous things New Yorkers call “streets” are brutal traps for lightweight (2,559.6 pounds), tiny, front-wheel-drive city wagons such as the Kia Soul.

When its standard 18-inch diameter wheels strike potholes, the Soul shudders, as do the spirits and bodies of its driver and passengers. The discomfort is palpable and truly upsetting.

Kia obviously made a compromise here — trading weight in the engineering and design of suspension components, probably in a bid to increase fuel economy and control production costs, at the expense of a more comfortable ride and better handling over rough roads.

The suspension arrangement — independent front with MacPherson struts and stabilizer bar and a torsion beam in the rear — is sufficient for urban travel over well-paved roads. Japan has such streets. Western Europe has them, too.

I haven’t driven in Korea. But I’ve driven all over the United States, enough to know that the nation is in urgent need of a massive roadway makeover.

No comparable small wagon — Chevrolet HHR, Honda Element, Nissan Versa 1.8 S, Mazda 3 S Grand Touring, nor the Scion xD made by Toyota — can move through New York City or a similar repository of defective streets with driver and passenger comfort intact.

We have a problem. We seem to not understand that cars and trucks constitute one part of a transportation system. Their overall efficiency and safety depend on the design and maintenance of other portions of that system, namely the streets.

We cannot, on one hand, demand that vehicle manufacturers give us safer and more fuel-efficient cars and trucks while, on the other hand, we compromise those fervently sought virtues with dangerously maintained roads that damage vehicle components, stall traffic and contribute to wasted fuel in avoidable traffic jams.

That’s a rant, one that probably will go unheard as our nation’s lawmakers debate over whether setting aside more cash for road repair is wasting money on “earmarks” or “pork,” or is, in fact, necessary spending to improve America’s infrastructure.

Until the geniuses figure that out, I humbly suggest that Kia redesign the Soul’s suspension, enabling it to cope in a more hellish world.

2010 Kia Soul

Complaint: Kia should have put as much work into the Soul’s suspension design as it did in the wagon’s hip stuff, such as lights in front speaker enclosures that blink in rhythm with music played on the sound system.

Ride, acceleration and handling: Good ride and excellent handling on smooth roads. Marginal ride comfort and vehicle handling on bumpy streets. Highway acceleration is competent, meaning that the Soul can change lanes without venturing into eternity for its driver and passengers.

Head-turning quotient: “Is that the Scion xD?” No. Kindly read the badge. It’s the Kia Soul, specifically the Soul! — which is more upscale than the Soul Base and Soul+, but less compelling than the top-of-the-line Soul Sport, which probably has a better suspension than the tested Soul!

Body style/layout: The Soul is a compact, front-engine, front-wheel drive urban wagon with four side doors and a rear hatch.

Engine/transmission: The 2-liter, 16-valve, inline four-cylinder engine in the tested Kia Soul develops 142 horsepower at 6,000 revolutions per minute and 137 foot-pounds of torque at 4,600 revolutions per minute. The engine is linked to a four-speed automatic transmission. A five-speed manual gearbox is available.

Capacities: There are seats for five people. It can carry several bulky packages and long items — exact payload capacity is unavailable at this writing. Hauling capability is minimal. Fuel tank holds 11.5 gallons of recommended regular unleaded gasoline.

Mileage: The Environmental Protection Agency says the Soul gets 24 miles per gallon in the city and 31 miles per gallon on the highway. But we averaged 22 miles per gallon city and 29 miles per gallon highway.

Safety: Standard equipment includes ventilated front-discs and solid rear-disc brakes with antilock protection; side and head airbags; and, thankfully, electronic stability control.

Price: The 2010 Kia Soul with automatic transmission has a base price of $17,900. Dealer invoice price on that model is $16,775. Price as tested is $18,595, including a $695 destination charge. Dealer’s price as tested is $17,470. Prices are sourced from Kia; Edmunds.com; and Cars.com, an affiliate of The Washington Post.

Purse-strings note: A very decent urban runner. Just keep it off of lousy roads.