The Squeaky Wheel Podcast

Ana Carboni is a cycling advocate living and working in a super-challenging environment. Brasilia is the purpose-built capital of Brazil. It has some famous modern architecture including its sculptural parliament building. But Brasilia was designed in the 1950’s, entirely around the automobile. The result is a sprawling, high speed car-dominated city that is deadly for cyclists and pedestria...

New European Cycling Industries CEO Gets Proactive on Advocacy Our guest this month is Paul Walsh. Paul is originally from Ireland, has lived in Brussels for over 20 years and brings more than 12 years of experience working in Brussels-based industry associations. He holds a master's degree in Association Management and has worked across a wide range of sectors, including aviation, research and in...

Why It’s Time for 30 Now! Jullietta Jung and Jennifer Kent are launching a new campaign in Australia that is equally relevant around the world. 30Now will be calling for the speed limit on all local streets to be lowered to 30 kilometres per hour (20 miles per hour). Jennifer Kent is Associate Professor, Urbanism at the University of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. She’s also Hon...

Our guest this month is Skye Duncan, a brilliant communicator who is Executive Director of the Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI). This innovative and impactful organisation is primarily funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies with a worldwide team of over 45 expert staff. It has its roots in New York City, stemming from the era when Mike Bloomberg was mayor and oversaw huge advances in active t...

Welcome to season three of The Squeaky Wheel Podcast! We’re starting the year with an amazing guest who’s from San Francisco, USA, but lives in Paris, France and lectures for a university based in Melbourne, Australia! Grant also speaks five languages and has previously worked for international aid agencies in a wide range of countries around the world including Mexico, Brazil, Paragua...

This month we’re very excited to be speaking with Associate Professor Peter Norton who is a historian at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. Peter has authored two highly successful and thought-provoking books, “Fighting Traffic, The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City” and “Autonorama, The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving.” Peter...

Our guest this month is Wes Marshall, Author of the thought provoking book, “Killed by a Traffic Engineer.” This book has certainly ruffled feathers amongst some elements of the traffic engineer “establishment.” So much so that some state DOT’s (Departments of Transport) in the USA have banned the book from their libraries. But that hasn’t stopped staff from tho...

After graduating with degrees in Geography and Environmental Engineering, Prue Oswin spent eight years as a water engineer before switching to active transport in 2009.  Ever since then, Prue has been deeply involved in making her home region of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland a better place to walk and ride, especially for children.  Prue began her career working within local governmen...

We recorded this month’s episode at the National Transport Conference, that is run each year by the Transport Professionals Association. Both the conference and association have just been rebranded and relaunched by the organisation formerly known as the AITPM. Both Irene and Phil headed to Adelaide for this year’s conference that ran from 3rd - 5th September. Phil attended as a guest...

The World Bank might not be the first organisation that active travel advocates think of as an important potential partner. But with billions of dollars at their disposal they’ve already been enabling some amazing projects around the world, in part through the work of the highly motivated expert who was our inspiring guest this month. Sam Johnson is a Sustainable Transport Specialist with th...

Welcome to a completely different format for this month’s Squeaky Wheel Podcast. At the Velo-city conference 2025 in Gdansk, Poland, held from 10th-13th June 2025, Phil recorded a “vox pops”. He asked the same four questions in the same order to seven different conference presenters, who came from a wide range of locations around the world. Unfortunately, the sound quality of the...

In this episode we’re talking with leading safety expert, Dr Havez Alavi. Hafez has a passion for making our lives safer when we travel. Havez was born and raised in Iran. We start by asking him about key events during the first half of his life that helped to inspire his passion for road safety. Having already completed a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering in Iran, followed by a ma...

Just over five years ago, Jill Warren left a very senior global corporate career and took a serious pay cut to follow her passion and become the CEO of one of the world's largest and most influential cycling advocacy organisations, the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) She’s overseen some historic wins and helped to significantly grow the ECF, but now Jill has decided that it’s...

Kirsty Kelly is quietly spoken, but in this interview she shares great insights with authority. Since 2019, Kirsty has been CEO of the AITPM (Australian Institute of Traffic Planning in Management) which is Australia’s national association for transport professionals. Under Kirsty’s leadership, the AITPM recently published a groundbreaking Policy Issues Paper: The Path to Net Zero: Dec...

Matt is a great communicator who not only gives many insightful comments, but does so with a smile on his face and a glint in his eye. In our interview he covers a wide range of topics from the “D-Day Invasion” of cars that lands in every schoolground twice a day, through to “autobesity”, the need for better urban planning and more. Matt is a leading transport researcher an...

Sara Stace is a city shaper, urban transport innovator, and bold advocate for better streets . With a career spanning 30 years across federal, state, and local governments , as well as the private sector, she has played a key role in shaping cities, land use, and transport policies. She's also recently started her on consultancy, Vivendi Cities. In this episode, Sara discusses  Better Streets...

For more than a quarter of a century, Kevin has been one of the world’s most senior and successful leaders of cycling advocacy organisations. At the time we spoke to Kevin he was just about to retire after building Cycling Industries Europe (CIE) from small foundations into a large, successful, industry-funded peak advocacy group.  Originally from the UK but having lived in Brussels for many years...

Phil Jones is a quietly spoken achiever who has played a significant role behind the scenes in some of the UK’s most important advancements in active travel. Phil lives near Birmingham, UK where he has worked as a Charted Civil Engineer for over 40 years. In 2003 Phil founded PJA (Phil Jones associates) which has grown to over 130 staff today and is widely recognised as the leading expert consulta...

Kylie Nixon is one of Australia’s most experienced active transport professionals, but also a mum who encourages her kids to walk and ride and of course, worries about their safety. She graduated from the Queensland University of Technology with a Bachelor of Civil Engineering, followed by a Post Graduate Diploma in Urban Regional Planning. Kylie is an Associate Principal for the global consultanc...

Over recent years Lee Waters has been one of the most courageous and consequential politicians in the world when it comes to advocating for safer, more sustainable travel modes and questioning the usually unchallenged primacy of private automobiles. As Minister for Transport in the Welsh Government he led bold reforms in sustainable transport policies that generated international interest - includ...

Melinda has dedicated her career to sustainable transportation. Her impressive qualifications and career record are only matched by her high energy levels and huge capacity to make a difference. She is recognised as an international change-maker in urban mobility (winning a ‘Remarkable Women in Transport Award from GIZ/Transforming Urban Mobility Initiative in 2020. She holds a Masters in Urban Pl...

Tom Cooper is the Australia New Zealand General Manager of Beam, a global micromobility company undergoing impressive growth in the APAC region. With 20,000 vehicles and a team of almost 400 in Australia and New Zealand alone, Tom's insights into Beam's success, as well as the challenges along the way, make for interesting listening. Tom shares in detail about Beam’s journey to date and...

Philip and Irene McAleese are the co-founders of See. Sense . Established in 2013 by Philip and Irene McAleese, See. Sense leverages advanced sensor and AI technology to make cycling and micromobility safer and smarter. Philip and Irene have won a string of prestigious international awards for their ground-breaking technology that they’ve been rolling out in countries around the world. Having foun...