Talking Headways: A Streetsblog Podcast

This week Robin Rather of Collective Strength joins the podcast to talk about missteps in the planning profession.  She discusses how she got to thinking about urban issues and why she believes current planning practice is stuck in the 1990s. We also talk about the often jargon filled language the profession uses and use an example paragraph from Austin’s current code rewrite to illustrate.

This week is the first part of two where I chat with Jonn Elledge, the editor of City Metric and the host of the Skylines podcast.  In this episode Jonn interviews me about US transportation, particularly the history of urban subways and light rail and we also talk about transport politics and possible futures.

This week we welcome back Tanya Snyder of Politico Magazine for the 150th episode of Talking Headways. We discuss aviation legislation in the house of representatives including what it means for drones and whether private jets should pay more for air traffic control. We also talk about legislation on self-driving vehicles and all of the smaller details you might not have heard before including state versus federal regulations of vehicles and children’s safety.

This week we’re joined by Lee Einsweiler of Code Studio in Austin Texas.  We talk about all things land use codes and zoning including what goes into a zoning code, different countries approaches to zoning, the dreaded topic of parking, as well as why they usually haven’t been updated for 50 years.

This week on Talking Headways we’re joined by Zack Wasserman, Head of Global Business Development at Via, a ride sharing company headquartered in New York.  We talk about Via’s role as a ride sharing provider and software builder for transit agencies and how we can get more people sharing rides.  We also discuss how future transportation will likely change in lower density places and the role of innovation in both the public and private sector transportation space.

This week we’re coming to you from the UITP Global Transport Summit in Montreal with guest Projjal Dutta, the Director of Sustainability at the NYMTA.  We chat about the idea of transit avoided carbon, how you measure emissions, and the impact of Superstorm Sandy on sustainability thinking in the NY region.

This week on the podcast we’re chatting with Beth Osborne of T4America and Kevin DeGood of The Center for American Progress about infrastructure plans of the new administration.  We talk about the budget process skinny or thick, the possible benefits and drawbacks of public private partnerships, the difference between funding and financing, and what this means for transportation in rural areas. 

This week we’re joined by Patrick Oliva, the Co-Founder of the Paris Process on Mobility and Climate to talk about decarbonization of transport.  We chat about electrification of the transport sector and what it means for climate change, the role cities need to play in the Paris process and what levels of government work best, and the what the focus should be for mayors in the coming decade.

This week we’re joined by Matthew Heins to talk about his book The Globalization of American Infrastructure: The Shipping Container and Freight Transportation.  Matthew talks about how the American highway and rail systems created a global standard for shipping containers, the local actors shaping globalization, containerization’s effects on labor and relevance to an automated trucking future, and the massive intermodal terminals in cities like Chicago. 

This week we’re back with part 2 of our discussion with Dr. Lisa Schweitzer of USC’s Price School of Public Policy.  We talk about the idea of jobs housing balance, her blog post on the Smartest Boy Urbanist, her favorite planning books and mentors, and we get a preview of her upcoming book on firearms and cities. 

This week we're joined by Dr. Lisa Schweitzer of USC's Sol Price School of Public Policy. For this first episode of two with Dr. Schweitzer we chat about how her students respond to urban planning classes, the recent dustup between bike advocates during a city council election in Los Angeles, and autonomous vehicles and land policy.

This week we chat with Streetfilms own Clarence Eckerson Jr.  We chat about how he started making films and his beginnings with BikeTV.  Additionally, we talk about the best way to make films and what some of recommendations are for approaching people on the street.  There might also be a few stories about Veronica Moss, The Zozo, and The Color Gurple.

This week we’re joined by Shelley Poticha, Director of NRDC’s Urban Solutions Program.  We chat about a couple of programs she’s working on at NRDC including SPARCC and the City Energy Project.  I ask about the Clean Power Plan and we talk about how FTA and HUD were finally connected as well as the 1993 book she wrote with Peter Calthorpe about TOD called The Next American Metropolis.

This week we’re chatting with Matt Horton of Proterra, a company that designs and manufactures battery powered electric buses.  We chat about the basics of electric buses, power consumption and recharging, the benefits and costs, as well as possible environmental outcomes. 

This week we’re chatting with Chuck Wolfe about his new book Seeing the Better City.  We discuss how he makes his own urban diaries with images, the ability to sense events long passed in places we know, the best way for bloggers and urbanists to use pictures in their work and advocacy, and a future where images are data mined hopefully not resulting in the extermination of humans by our AI overlords. 

This week we’re joined by UITP’s Sylvain Haon ahead of the organization’s global public transport summit in Montreal.  We talk about big projects happening around the world, private and public moves towards mobility as a service, sustainable mobility planning in Europe, and how autonomous vehicles will help transit support a shared transportation future.

I can’t believe this episode is finally out for everyone to hear!  Over a year ago I was approached by a colleague who told me that something big was happening in Oakland and that I should monitor the process as they try to put together a new Transportation Department.  This the first and hopefully not the last episode in this series I’m starting on the Oakland Transportation Department to cover how it came to be and what comes next.  This particular episode follows new advocacy group Transport Oakland as a parklet project they wanted to see completed became political.  Future episodes will cover more politics and mechanics of the department specifically, but I thought this would be a good starting point.  So I hope you enjoy this first part of the series, and hopefully it won’t take another year to get to episode 2!

This week we’re joined by Darnell Grisby, Director of Policy Development and Research at the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). We talk about the national dip in transit ridership, who rides transit around the United States and federal policy going forward.  Darnell also talks about technology innovation that might be coming to transit agencies including autonomous buses, different vehicle sizes, new payment systems and more.   

This week we’re back at the Shared Use Mobility Summit in Chicago this last October.  In what feels like a bit of a time warp, Laura Washington of the Chicago Sun Times hosts a panel featuring The Metropolitan Planning Council’s MarySue Barrett, the Shared Use Mobility Center’s Sharon Feigon, and Transportation for America’s James Corless. The panel discusses what they think federal policy will be like with a new administration and what to expect from a Republican Congress.  There’s a lot of valuable information for thinking about our current infrastructure spending discussion including partnerships and programs even though there was no knowledge of the eventual November winner. 

This week we’re joined by Corinne Kisner and Matthew Roe of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) to talk about their mission and series of Street Design Guides.  We talk about how the guides are put together, how cities are using them to change their streets, and the importance of creating streets for people.