Talking Headways: A Streetsblog Podcast

This week we’re joined by James Rojas of Place It! to talk about art in planning and Latino Urbanism.

Brian McMahon and GB Arrington talk about TCRP Report 182, Linking Transit Agencies and Land Use Decision Making.

This week we’re joined by Christy Kwan, Interim Executive Director of the Alliance for Biking and Walking to talk about their bi-annual national Benchmarking Report. We talk about the awesome information in the report and why local activists might use it to advocate for better communities.

This week we’re joined by Muriel Xochimitl, Jon Larsen, and Callie New of the Wasatch Front Regional Council MPO in Utah to talk about their new interactive story map tool measuring urban street design that took the walkability research of Reid Ewing and Otto Clement at the University of Utah and turned it into a data rich map the team hopes will become a standard measure for all streets.

Jake Mecklenborg, the author of Cincinnati's Incomplete Subway joins us to talk about the history of the tunnels under the city that have been there now for 100 years.

Akshay Mani joins us to talk about transportation issues in India.

Ed Parillon comes on the show to talk about living in Trinidad, dive bars, housing, raising kids in cities, and transit dates.

Jason Jordan joins the podcast to talk about transportation ballot measures and new tactics from the opposition.

This week we’re joined by Kristen Jeffers, the Communcations and Membership Manager for Bike Walk KC and the Author of The Black Urbanist. Join us for a fun conversation about regional department stores, hair salons, and more!

Yonah Freemark joins us to talk about his new mapping tool Transit Explorer and the big transit projects that are opening or under construction in the next year.

Author Nathan Landau joins us to talk about his travel guide Car Free LA and Southern California.

Rob Sadow of the carpool app Scoop talks about the future of transportation and how his app works for businesses wanting more employees to ride to work together.

Alisa Valderrama and Rob Moore of NRDC talk about how water and climate change effects cities and infrastructure now and in the future.

This week we’re chatting with Jay Crossley of Houston Tomorrow and Streetsblog Texas. On September 30th Houston passed a new comprehensive plan and ceased to be the largest city in the United States without one. Plan Houston was over 14 years in the making and allows Houston to stop as Jay says “Plan by Pitchfork”.

Matt Johnson from DC joins us to talk about how he's ridden 101 different rail transit systems and the origins of #NerdTrain

Former head of Chicago and DC departments of transportation Gabe Klein discusses themes from his new book called Start Up City.

Live from the Rail~Volution conference in Dallas, we chat with Catherine Cuellar and Dave Unsworth about Dallas and Portland respectively.

Dr. Richard Jackson joins the podcast to talk about health and cities.

Mike Lydon joins us to talk about Tactical Urbanism and Pattern Cities. I also wonder, is Urbanism like fashion? Things just keep coming back into style.

Dr. Kevin Gurney of Arizona State joins us to chat about carbon emissions data collection at the street, the block, and the city level.

Tim Sullivan joins us to talk about his new book Ways to the West

Clifton Lemon and Steve Lawton of LightPlace Advisors join me this week to talk about how lighting is going to change in cities with the advent of the LED.

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Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} This week on the podcast I’m joined by Dr. Mariela Alfonzo to discuss walkability in China. We talk about her recent paper, Walkability, obesity and urban design in Chinese neighborhoods in the journal Preventative Medicine as well as the lack of data availability for researchers, the obstacles to walking such as poles and poorly designed ramps, and the huge issue of air quality indoors and out.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} This week Ann Cheng of the California Transportation Advocacy Group Transform joins me to talk about their Green Trip program. Ann, a planner, the former Mayor of El Cerrito California, as well as one of San Francisco Business Times “40 Under Forty” in 2014 discusses how housing developers can build less parking and more housing by giving residents better travel options through Green Trip Certification.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Mariia Zimmerman of MZ Strategies joins me to chat about her new report on local advocacy for transportation reform called Transportation Transformation.<> Mariia, former Deputy Director for the Office of Sustainable Communities at HUD as well as former Chief of Staff to Congressman Earl Blumenauer, spent a year probing the local transportation advocacy landscape to see what issues people were working on, which regions were the most innovative, and case studies that look at the San Francisco Bay Area and the Washington DC region.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Guest host Randy Simes, Headline writer for the Streetsblog Ohio Network Blog and owner of UrbanCincy.com, joins me from South Korea to give his thoughts on his current home in the Gangnam district of Seoul and his previous one in Atlanta. We cover Keith Parker’s turnaround of Atlanta’s transit agency MARTA, talk about the belt line and the types of people that won’t leave the cozy boundary it creates, and Randy shares the best place to get southern hospitality in town. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} From there we swerve from a discussion about Al Gore’s $90T plan to remake cities without cars into a chat about America’s crumbling infrastructure. Or splintering. Depends on what material the pipes are made from. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} And for the final few minutes there is a celebration of Denver’s 10 year anniversary of the Fastracks vote. Regionalism and light rail on freight rights-of-way is debated and the locals might know what Randy means when he mentions Biker Jim. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} All that and more on this week’s Talking Headway Podcast