Look Both Ways with David & Wes

Gas Prices - David & Wes talk about high gas prices and whether the changes they prompt will stick. Some people try transit or bicycling. Others start shopping for an EV or a hybrid. But what happens when gas gets cheaper again? The conversation then turns to the shrinking value of fuel taxes as well as a question that many people think they already know the answer to: who pays for our roads?...

Climate + Transportation - David & Wes kick things off with a good conversation about the irony of Waymo sponsoring Climate Week events. Electric robotaxis may be cleaner than gas-powered car trips, but that does not mean they help the bigger cause. The harder questions are about what kinds of trips they replace, whether they create new vehicle miles, and whether AVs reduce driving or simply m...

Speed Limits - David & Wes talk about speed limits: what they can do, what they can’t do, and the surprisingly complicated question of how robotaxis should handle them. Japan is moving toward lower speed limits on a large share of its roads, shifting many streets from 60 km/h to 30 km/h. That sounds simple enough, but speed is never just the number on the sign. It looks different from behind t...

Senior Mobility - David & Wes talk about older drivers, road safety, and the uneasy idea of “driving forever.” Wes starts with a paper he co-authored about how people think about driving, aging, and the possibility that they may someday need to give up the keys. But the point is not just what happens when someone can no longer drive; it is what happens before that. David then talks about visit...

Global Road Safety - David & Wes take a global view of road safety and ask why the United States keeps falling behind. They start with the U.S. being the only country to vote against a United Nations road safety declaration, then turn to a more uncomfortable comparison: the U.S. now appears to have a worse per-capita road fatality rate than Russia. From there, they look at the widening global...

Transit Funding Freeze - David & Wes dig into our frozen federal transit funding situation and what happens when major transit projects are not officially killed, but also are not allowed to move forward. After new reporting on the Trump administration’s apparent halt in final agreements for Capital Investment Grants, they talk about what these delays mean, why stalled transit funding makes pr...

Tire Pollution - David & Wes look at tire pollution and why the harms may be broader than most people realize. What started as a story about 6PPD-Q washing into streams and devastating coho salmon is now raising new questions about human health, including a recent study linking tire-related pollution to Alzheimer’s-related pathways. They talk through what we know, what we still do not know, an...

Bike Stress - David & Wes talk about bike route stress and a major blind spot in the existing Level of Traffic Stress method: intersections. The current approach does a good job rating street segments, but it largely ignores exactly where a route can become far more stressful in real life. David & Wes discuss a new survey designed to help fix that gap by bringing intersections into the mix...

Crash Data Blind Spots - David & Wes dig into crash data and why Americans may know less about road deaths than we think. Everyone says they want data-driven safety policy, but the data we rely on often miss major categories of harm, including crashes on private property, parking lots, driveways, and behind gates. They talk through what gets counted, what gets left out, and why police-collecte...

The World Cup - David & Wes mark the start of the World Cup by talking about the transportation culture shock many international visitors may experience in the United States. From stadium access to transit service to the everyday assumptions baked into how we move people around big events, they discuss why hosting a global event can expose the gaps in our transportation system. It’s a conversa...

Gas Tax Holiday - David & Wes take on gas tax holidays and why cutting a few cents from the price of gas is usually better politics than transportation policy. The federal gas tax has been stuck at 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993, and suspending it would barely make a dent in a fill-up while weakening a transportation funding system that is already running on fumes. They talk through who actu...

The Car Industry - David & Wes drive straight into the changing car industry and what today’s vehicles reveal about identity, status, and the future of transportation. From cheap Chinese EVs showing up near the U.S. border to the pressure they could place on Detroit, they explore whether companies like BYD and Geely could bring back the affordable car in America and why U.S. automakers may str...

Freedom to Drive - In this very special episode of Look Both Ways recorded in front of a live audience on a rooftop in Denver, Jill Locantore of the Denver Streets Partnership joins David & Wes to dig into the Trump Administration’s “Freedom to Drive” initiative and what it says about how we think about congestion, mobility, and who the transportation system is really for. They contrast that n...

Driver Assistance – David & Wes dig into driver assistance systems and the question of whether they’re actually making our roads safer. Following a recent NTSB hearing, they explore both the promise and the problems, from real potential safety benefits to the very real ways these systems can encourage overtrust. They talk through how “hands-off” can become “mind-off,” why supervising automatio...

Pedestrian Deaths – David & Wes dig into a surprising shift in pedestrian safety and ask a harder question: are streets actually getting safer, or are we just seeing a temporary drop in risk? After years of rising fatalities, recent numbers suggest a modest improvement, but the pattern is anything but consistent. They explore whether this reflects real progress from design changes and enforcem...

Gas Prices – David & Wes dig into the upside of high gas prices and why the story is more nuanced than it often seems. While rising costs at the pump can create real challenges, they also explore how higher prices can make other modes more attractive, reinforce location efficiency, and shift how people think about transportation more broadly. It’s a conversation about how gas prices shape beha...

Mailbag! – David & Wes take listener questions on any and all things transportation. Before doing so, they talk about why David is at the Northwestern Transportation Library. The answer? He’s writing a book about congestion pricing called The Price of Traffic. Other topics include: 🔹 Sovereignty Implications of Cars 🔹 Bentley’s Law 🔹 Headlights 🔹 Insurance Companies Subsidizing Rural AVs...

Florida Men – David & Wes venture down to Fort Lauderdale for the 2026 Safe Roads Summit. After their respective talks, they jump on stage to record a live podcast episode with Broward MPO Executive Director, Greg Stuart. Topics include: 🔹 The Brightline Train Destroying a Delivery Robot 🔹 The Long History of Unsafe Streets in Florida 🔹 Managed Lanes Moving from Nonstarter to Normal Additio...

Rural AVs – David & Wes take a deep dive into the future of rural transportation and why mobility challenges outside our cities deserve far more attention. From David’s experience trying to get around West Virginia to Wes’ take on “rural urbanism” and the awesomeness of some rural Main Streets, they explore what rural villages get right, where and why rural areas struggle, and how autonomous v...

Parking Meters – David & Wes unpack the recent multi-billion-dollar resale of Chicago’s parking meter lease and why it matters. They explain the contract, including the compensation clause, and how it continues to hamstring Chicago’s ability to improve transportation. They also explore the less-discussed reality that some good has come from the deal such as a city that actually charges market...

AV Safety – David & Wes explain why an online kerfuffle about autonomous vehicle safety unexpectedly put David himself in the spotlight. They unpack why autonomous vehicle debates so often generate more noise than insight, how narratives take on a life of their own, and what cities should be paying attention to right now. Listeners will come away with a clear sense of where autonomous vehicles...

Robotaxi Meltdown – David & Wes discuss how robotaxis affect urban resilience after a blackout brought mayhem to San Francisco’s streets. As robotaxis expand in cities across the United States and Europe, how will they react to emergencies and unforeseen events? If autonomous vehicles freeze en masse, transportation networks could grind to a halt. Other topics: 🔹 The quiet power of city sidew...

End of Year Extravaganza – David & Wes toss the usual format aside to look back at the transportation stories that defined 2025. From policies and headlines that made them hopeful to moments that were equal parts absurd and infuriating, they reflect on what the past year revealed about the state of streets, transit, and transportation more broadly. Listeners will come away with a clearer sense...

Waymo in Cities – David & Wes explore why cities are beginning to push back on Waymo and other robotaxi companies, and what that resistance reveals about local control, safety, and trust in emerging technologies. Using Boston’s response as a case study, they dig into the tensions between innovation narratives and municipal responsibility. Listeners will come away with a clearer understanding o...

Defunding Transit – David & Wes examine the growing efforts to defund transit through mechanisms like the Highway Trust Fund. What happens when transit funding is threatened and slowly hollowed out? Rather than treating these moves as abstract budget debates, they focus on the real-world consequences for reliability, coverage, and who gets left behind.  Today, we also talk about: 🔹 How we lea...