Talking Headways: A Streetsblog Podcast

This week we're flashing back to Talking Headways episode 379 in which we were joined by Frank Markowitz and Leni Schwendinger to talk about the book Outdoor Lighting for Pedestrians. We chatted about creating legible nighttime spaces, what planners should focus on when programming lighted spaces, and the future of lighting and transportation.

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Many thanks to Bob Nanna for our intro/outro music.

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This week we're away at a conference, but we're flashing back to episode 542 where we're joined once again by professor Karel Martens. We learn about how transportation engineering is good at measuring only one problem and ignoring others and a new tool to determine the success of transportation systems.

Fair Transport Lab Website

A scale for describing people's mobility status - Findings Press

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This week we're joined by Sofia Navas and James Nix of the NGO Transport & Environment to talk about their recent report: Ever Bigger? Car Size at a Crossroads. We discuss the increasing size of vehicles and why they keep growing. The safety issues that are tied to vehicle size increases, and the amount of parking and public space that could be lost.

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This week we're Han Solo, but that won't stop us from sharing some interesting news including daylighting urban streams, why we shouldn't put everything on transit, Barcelona's e-bike subsidy, and Charlotte's value created.

News Items

Two ways to daylight streams - The Conversation

Transit scope creep - Works in Progress

Barcelona e-bike - City of Barcelona

The Carbon Wave - MIT Press Reader

Feedback loops - ArchDaily

Charlotte light rail value - Planetizen

Dead malls a thing still? - Arbitrary Lines

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This week on the Talking Headways podcast we're joined by Joshua Schank to talk about his book New Tricks for Old Bureaucracies: Improving Policy Outcomes in the Public Sector. Joshua talks about the inner workings of LA Metro, benefits of openness and transparency as well as strategic planning.  We also share frustrations about meetings, transit board structures, and agency fiefdoms.

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This week on the Talking Headways podcast we're joined by Yale's Karen Seto and University of Connecticut's Zhe Zhu to talk about their study: The Urban Pulse. We talk about using frequent time series satellite data to measure change in cities and the processes of urbanization.

The Urban Pulse - Yale School for the Environment

The Urban Pulse: Diagnosing the urbanization process as spiky, cyclical, and asynchronous - PNAS

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This week on the Mondays Show we are Han Solo again, but have a lot of interesting news to share. We talk about LA's people mover change orders, a poll that finds lots of people want urbanism, and a trip along the coast of West Africa.

Today's Items

People mover change orders - The Hollywood Reporter

Voter attitudes towards green urbanism - Data for Progress

Overperforming downtowns - Patrick Kennedy

West African coast - NPR

E-bike town - Portland Mercury

A city for families...

This week on the Talking Headways podcast we're chatting with Dallas Developer, DART Board Member, and urban designer Patrick Kennedy about his recent publication, An Atlas of Intercity Highway Impacts (Available Here). We discuss the tax base removed from cities by highways, what we could have done for cities with federal transportation funding, and the long term value lost.

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This week we're finally doing it! We're going to Kingwood Texas and talking about the greenbelt trail system I've been telling everyone about for years. This is a storytelling episode, featuring guests John Walsh, Jerry Lunow, and Bill Neuhaus so I hope folks enjoy hearing about NASA, timber companies, bike trails, and Houston's bayous.  But also, stick around to hear how a suburban development in Texas from the 1970's mirrors and pre-dated Dutch bike planning with special guest, Streetsblog Chicago's Steve Vance.

Find all Talking Headways episodes here.

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This week we're Han Solo and covering some of the news from the last few weeks. We talk about delivery worker stress, Maryland's need to build a revolving loan fund, and how street network design could help us build more housing. Below are the show notes with links from the articles we mentioned.

Main Items

Sydney active transport superhighways - Committee for Sydney

Beauty over billboards - Reasons to be Cheerful

ROAD to housing passes - NPR

ROAD details - Bipartisan Policy Center

EPA wants to allow...

This week on the Talking Headways podcast we're joined by Lisa Jerram of APTA and Philip Plotch of the Eno Center for Transportation to discuss Eno's report: Customization, Competition, and Costs: Findings and Recommendations for the U.S. Transit Bus Industry. We discuss what agencies want in a bus and why, the differences in European and US bus markets, and why customization standardization is hard to achieve.

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We're on vacation this week but we're flashing back to Episode 482 from two years ago featuring Megan Kimble discussing her book City Limits.  Soon we'll have Patrick Kennedy on the show and some of this work goes very well with his so I thought it would be a good one to bring back. Hope folks enjoy it!

This week we're joined by Megan Kimble to talk about her book  City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America's Highways. We chat about the folks fighting back against highways, the history behind building big roads, and what the fu...

We're on vacation this week but we're flashing back to episode 422 of Talking Headways from a couple of years ago featuring one of our favorites, Jennifer Kent. We'll be back in a few weeks but I hope folks enjoy this one.

This week we're joined by  Dr. Jennifer Kent, Senior Research Fellow in Urbanism at the University of Sydney, to talk about her work on family transportation, the messiness of travel for parents, and loneliness and the built environment.

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This week on the Talking Headways podcast, Steve Davis of Smart Growth America joins the show to talk about their most recent edition of Dangerous by Design. We chat about where we stand on pedestrian traffic deaths in the United States, the data collected to tell the story, and creating consequences for not improving safety.

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This week on the Talking Headways podcast we're joined by SFMTA Director of Transportation Julie Kirschbaum. She discusses making system improvements, rising customer satisfaction, lessons from the pandemic on ridership and operations, as well as Muni's cultural connection to the city.

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This week on the Mondays show Han Solo is back and we're going through some news from the last month or so. Some really super interesting items to share in news format from what's in the ROAD to Housing Act that recently passed, night time transportation, the difference between Costco and Amazon logistics, and what makes an authentic place. There's much much more so how about diving in?

News Items

Inside the ROAD to Housing Act: Bipartisan Policy Center

Mobility wallet - Journal of the American Planning Association

Night transit...

This Week on the Talking Headways podcast we're joined by Bill Fulton who has worn many hats including mayor, planning director, think tank director, publisher, professor and currently can be found writing on Substack at The Future of Where. We chat the impacts of work from home on cities, changing migration patterns and the south's new role as the "National Suburb", tax policy and burdens, 100 years of zoning law, and much much more.

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This week on the Talking Headways podcast we're joined by Greg Shill, Professor of Law at the University of Iowa, and Jonathan Levine, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan to talk about their paper, First Principals of Transportation Law and Policy. We talk about how to rethink transportation metrics towards accessibility, how the law has embedded mobility in transportation, and why we really travel.

Hey everyone!  This is an episode we put out in February of 2023 with Greg Shill and Jonathan Levine about their paper discussing how to rethink transportation metrics by p...

This week on Mondays at The Overhead Wire, Tracy McMillan is back on the show to talk about a number of items including a piece on the role of the built environment in population decline, the kids of the Netherlands taking part in a four day national walking festival, the prevalence of growing vehicles in the United States and in Europe, and a signification pollution reduction in London on account of low emissions policies including vehicle limits. 

News Item Links

Built environment and population decline - Architect Magazine

Dutch children's four d...

This week on the Talking Headways podcast we're joined by Will Poff-Webster of the Institute for Progress to talk about their new collection of ideas to bring transit project costs down entitled the Transit Abundance Playbook. We discuss how to translate ideas into legislation, how these ideas fit into the current transportation bill, the importance of building public sector capacity, and how to cut costs in order to build more transit projects.

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This week we're joined by Ryan Puzycki, who writes at The City of Yes.  We have a discussion on urban disorder, how it manifests, and how to address the upstream impacts instead of when it's too late. We also talk about enforcing norms and the impacts of media on our perceptions.

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This week on the Mondays show we're joined by Kate Gasparro of the Building Better Cities podcast. We talk about the potential for land value taxes, research on car commutes from the Pottsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 15 minute cities and the importance of destinations, and big Japanese megadevelopments.

Main Stories

A potential for land value taxes - Sightline Institute

A new approach to planning with less driving - Pottsdam Insitute for Climate Impact Research 

15 minute cities and proximities to jobs - Florida Atlantic University

Rise of the managed c...

This week we're joined by Professor Eric Dumbaugh of Florida Atlantic University to share his new paper on Land Use and Road Safety: Understanding the Persistence of Vulnerable Road User Deaths and Injuries in the United States. We discuss the connections between the siting of destinations and deaths of vulnerable road users as well as a long game needed for true road safety.

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This week we're joined by Ryan Avent to discuss his new book In Good Faith: How the Nature of Belief Shapes the Fate of Societies. We discuss human evolution and the impact of collective knowledge and culture and the need to create a new story about the future of society. We also discuss grass is greener thinking on infrastructure, the nature of belief without the need for evidence, and the fact that there is no perfect past.

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Chrissy Mancini Nichols joins the show again and we have a blast talking about all kinds of urban topics.  We discuss the rise of electro-states, a new way to measure accessibility from Wendy Zhao, short versus long term thinking on BRT alignments, and thoughts on how we should fund transportation considering our new world of deliveries and electric vehicles. Lots of great stuff, listen in here.

Discussion Items

Dawn of the Electric World Order - Phenomenal World

A new way of measuring accessibility - USC Price

Colfax: to center ru...

This week on the Talking Headways podcast we're joined by Jaime Benavides and Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou of Brown University to discuss their new paper showing how community severance by road infrastructure and traffic has led to more mental health related hospital visits in New York City. We talk about the role of roads cutting people off from social connections and how impacts of roads on mental health were separated out from air quality.

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This week we're joined by Dabney Sanders, Project Manager of the Greensboro Downtown Greenway. We chat about opening the final section of the Greenway after 25 years of work, the amazing art projects on the route, and lessons for other cities wanting to build greenways.

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This week on the Talking Headways podcast we're joined by Cardozo Law professor Michael Pollack to talk about his new book Sidewalk Nation: The Life and Law of America's Most Overlooked Resource. Michael discusses who manages, owns, and feels ownership of sidewalks and advocates for a Department dedicated to them. We also talk about the nexus between sidewalks and roads, the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Denver's successful funding and maintenance referendum.

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This week on Mondays at The Overhead Wire we're joined once again by Tracy McMillan to discuss a number of super interesting news items. We discuss the future of New Orleans in a time of Sea Level rise, getting amphibians across the road safely during mating season, food insecurity amidst transit deserts, the importance of weekend transit service, and a bit on meeting people where they are when planning.

Below are the News items that were discussed and links to resources mentioned.

Main Items

SafeTrec street story - University of California at Berkeley...

This week we're joined by Stephanie Dockery to discuss the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge.  Stephanie discusses how a bus art can get a cult following, how artists are creating attention in their cities with temporary art, and what happens after the projects disappear.

Find the Bloomberg Connects art app here which contains audio, video, and written resources.

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We're doing a bit of a crossover episode this week as I wanted to do two things, promote the amazing podcast The Brake hosted by Kea Wilson at Streetsblog USA and Dr. Anat Caspi at The University of Washington and her work focused on creating a platform that inventories Washington State's sidewalks. This is a reproduction of The Brake's February 24th episode What It Would Take to Map Every Sidewalk In Your State.   

The Washington State sidewalk inventory is now 100% complete but if you'd like to be part of the coalition to get legislative support for continued ma...

This week we're joined by Arizona State Professor Benjamin Fong to discuss an item he wrote in Urban Omnibus entitled Where's My Package? We discuss his work trying to suss out how e-commerce companies like Amazon have built their logistics systems and the difficulties of last mile deliveries. Benjamin also shares potentially beneficial legislation, movements that could benefit workers, and the process of siting warehouses that impact small towns to the benefit of big corporations.

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This week we're Han Solo, but have a lot of great news items to share including SRO legislation, Japan's rail expertise, the idea of onboarding residents to a city, and the quiet that came from the solar eclipse.

Below are the show notes including links to the articles that we discussed.

MAIN ITEMS

SRO legislation - Niskanen Center

Older drivers - Carbon Upfront!

Japan's railways - Works in Progress

The warehouse in plain sight - Places Journal

Onboarding residents - National League of...

This week we're joined by Tom Flood, Grant Ennis, and Brent Toderian to discuss their new communications project, The Urban Truth Collective.  We discuss pushing back on falsehoods and conspiracies through positive messaging around cities.

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This week on The Talking Headways podcast we're joined by Calvin Thigpen of Toole Design and Ysabel Hoogeveen of Upway to discuss a report entitled Refurbished E-bikes: An Affordable Transportation Solution for Cities and Consumers. We chat about costs for used e-bikes and what could help grow the industry.

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This week on Mondays at The Overhead Wire we're Han Solo, but got some great and interesting news for everyone. We look at a model base for disabled Olympians in Milan, the economic security of American households, and how reverse game theory can create win win situations in cities. All the items we covered are in the notes below.

Main items:

Accessible cities can exist - Teen Vogue

Economic security of Americans - Governing

City doesn't need a dashboard - Route Fifty

Texas' clean energy future - Grist

Hey everyone!  We're on Spring Break this week (and posting a little early) but I wanted to do a fun flashback so here we're chatting with David Hensher of the University of Sydney (Episode 425) about his thoughts on Mobility as a Service renamed mobility as a feature.  It's super interesting and thought provoking so I hope you enjoy it.  We'll see you next week!

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This week on the Talking Headways podcast we're joined once again by Laurel Paget-Seekins of Public Advocates. Laurel discusses transit agency power dynamics, loss of public sector capacity, and how the administration is looking to gut civil rights enforcement mechanisms for transportation projects.

Links to Laurel's website Laurel in Transit and the Transit Data Primer

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This week we're joined by Stephen Crim, Director, Policy & Analytical Reporting, Central Business District Tolling Program (CBDTP) at the NYMTA. We chat about the MTA's one year data report on congestion pricing including some of the results and how the data was collected. Stephen also discusses the numerous government data partnerships and enhancements including air quality monitoring and what other cities can look to in order to consider future pricing schemes.

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This week on Mondays at the Overhead Wire we're joined once again by Chrissy Mancini Nichols and Tracy McMillan to tackle a whole host of topics including the connection between VMT and safety, chrono urbanism, how navigating cities protects your brain, and Austin's housing construction success.

Main Discussion

Chrono urbanism - Landzine

Lower VMT means safer roads - SSTI

Austin housing growth - Pew

DC road pricing - Greater Greater Washington

Brains on streets - Medical Xpress

Connect Bay Area info

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