Talking Headways: A Streetsblog Podcast

This week we're joined live from Rail~Volution by Houston Metro Board Member Christof Spieler. We talk about the progress on Houston's bus reimagining and Christof gives tips for public engagement and system planning. There's also a discussion about route alignments for bus and rail lines and a plea to use more data when making decisions.

This week we're chatting with Ian Brown, former Managing Director for London Rail. We discuss everything London transport including operations contracts, congestion pricing, constructing, financing and making the case for the massive Crossrail project, cycling, bus operations and even contactless payment systems.

This week I'm joined by Meea Kang, Rail~volution Board Member and Founding Partner of Domus Development. Meea joins me live from the Rail~volution conference to talk about what it's like to be an affordable housing developer building sustainable projects. We talk about the 16 variances it took to do TOD in Sacramento, workforce housing in Tahoe on a bus line with 60 minute headways, and what it takes to pass a state law that reduces parking requirements near transit.

This week I'm joined by Tiffany Chu, the Co-Founder of the transit planning software firm Remix. Tiffany discusses the positive responses that the company has gotten from the industry and what made got it started. We also discuss the possible policy implications as well as the movement towards open data.

This week we're chatting with transit advocate Sunday Parker about transportation access for people with disabilities. We talk about the design of transit stations, the layout of the new BART train cars and what that means for different types of users, the idea of universal design and access in the built environment overall, and our best transit days.

This week we're joined by Shane Phillips who writes at the blog Better Institutions. We chat about Los Angeles' and everyone else's housing issues including The Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, development exactions, vacancy rates, and more. Shane also talks a bit about how he keeps motivated to write the blog and what allows him to think a little bit outside the box before thinking about the importance of urbanist happy hours.

This week we're joined by Rob Puentes of the Eno Center for Transportation, a 95 year old organization focused on better transportation outcomes. We discuss a number of different topics including some we usually don't hear much about. Aviation, freight, coordinating automated vehicle policy, and the presidential election are some of the big topics in our discussion.

This week we're joined by former Vancouver BC chief planner Brent Toderian. We discuss the best way to do density, when towers are appropriate for cities, what type of cities should take on the Olympics, and what happens to a planner after they have kids. Brent also talks about the negatives of not only NIMBYs but YIMBYs and whether we should believe all those articles that rank cities by any measure.

This week we're joined by Patrick Kennedy to talk about what's going on in Dallas. We discuss A New Dallas and the recent TXDOT CityMap Plan which will re-imagine the freeways and roads in downtown Dallas. We also discuss the importance of existing dense neighborhoods to promote new neighborhoods, downtown subways, urban politics, and what's going on with plans for the Trinity River.

This week we're joined by Josh Lapp, a board member at Transit Columbus to talk about Ohio's capital city. We talk about the changes that have been happening to make Columbus more urban, how its stadiums have been situated to support downtown growth and walkability, and transportation issues such as bike share, light rail, and of course the recent win by Columbus of USDOT's smart cities challenge.

This week we're going back to the Live.Ride.Share conference from Denver for the closing plenary. Speakers discuss the Smart City Challenge put on by the DOT, the future of shared use mobility carpooling services, autonomous vehicles, and their impact on cities and greenhouse gases. Speakers include: Mark Dowd, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at USDOT, Amanda Eaken - Deputy Director of the Urban Solutions Program, NRDC Emily Castor - Director of Transportation Policy, Lyft Jonathan Hall - Head of Economic Research for Public Policy and Litigation, Uber Technologies

This week on the podcast I'm bringing back a conversation I had in Cambridge England with Daniele Quercia and Luca Aiello of Bell Labs. This focus recently has been on data mining and aggregation which has led to sensory mapping<> in cities. With this information they have been able to map smell, sound, and how people feel on their favorite walking routes.

This week we're joined by David Sachs of Streetsblog Denver. David talks about the amazing advocacy landscape in the city as well as a number of specific projects and initiatives that are happening in the city from the controversial widening of I-70 to the possibility of a new transportation department and the rethinking of the 16th street bus mall.

This week we're joined by Paul Mackie of Mobility Lab, to talk about transportation demand management (TDM) and mobility in cities. We discuss how cities are not prepared for new mobility and the need to share data and plan for different mobility outcomes.

This week we're joined by cartographer Gretchen Peterson to talk about map making as well as her new book, City Maps: A Coloring Book for Adults. We talk about why she designed the book and why the cities she chose to display were included.

This week we replay the morning plenary broadcast live from the Denver Live.Ride.Share conference that happened last month. Jill Locantore of WalkDenver introduces University of Virginia Professor Peter Norton, author of Fighting Traffic who discusses how automobiles were sold to the public and Gabe Klein, former DOT Director in Washington DC and Chicago who talks about what he believes their future might be. Peter's talk is at the 5 minute mark and Gabe's starts at 28:15. Questions from the audience and a discussion between the two start at 1:02.15 if you're short on time.

This week we're chatting with Sharon Feigon of the Shared Use Mobility Center. I ask what shared use mobility is and we talk about the growth of bike share, car share, ride hailing, and more.

This week I'm joined by Kevin DeGood of The Center for American Progress and Deron Lovaas of NRDC to talk about rules proposed by the Federal Highway Administration to measure congestion and greenhouse gas emissions.

This week we're joined by Laurel Paget-Seekins to talk about her work as a transit activist in Atlanta, her thinking about transit networks from her time in Santiago Chile, and her current work on data collection and dissemination as the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the MBTA in Boston.

This week we're joined by Tanya Snyder to look back a bit on 100 episodes of the Talking Headways Podcast. We also talk about DC Metro, Moving Sidewalks, and your transportation habits when you move to a new house.

This week we're joined by Shima Hamidi, Reid Ewing, and John Renne to talk about their paper "How Affordable is HUD Affordable Housing?" in the Journal Housing Policy Debate which discusses the issue of housing and transportation affordability.

This week we're joined by Robert Ping, The Executive Director of the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute. We talk about complete streets, active living, and Pittsburgh's plans for shared space.

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