Talking Headways: A Streetsblog Podcast

Forgive us for the unacceptable two-week gap between podcast episodes but this one is totally worth the wait. Your transit geekery will feast on our in-depth exploration of three transit lines (in order of fantasy to reality):  Las Vegas ,  Minneapolis , and  Salt Lake City . Despite having population density that rivals Manhattan, the Las Vegas strip doesn't have high-quality transit running alon...

What would you think of a city planner, out ruffling feathers with his bold ideas about density and urbanism -- who commutes to work an hour each way  from his ranch way outside the city ? Ironic -- or hypocritical? That's the question we wrestle with in our discussion of Brad Buchanan, the head honcho at Denver's Department of Community Planning and Development.  And then we head from Denver to D...

Welcome to the dog days of summer! Before skipping town, Congress passed a transportation funding patch so they wouldn't have to deal with the real problem of the unsustainable way our nation builds and pays for infrastructure. I give the briefest possible rundown of where we are now before Jeff and I launch into discussions about the issues of the day: zoning and ride-share. Houston is famous for...

In this week's podcast, Jeff and I take on the infamous New York City " poor   door ," designed to keep tenants of affordable units segregated from the wealthy residents that occupy the rest of the high-rise at 40 Riverside. In the process, we take on the assumptions and methods that cities use to provide housing, and by the time we're done, we've blown a hole in the whole capitalist system. Then...

Welcome to Episode 29 of the Talking Headways podcast. In it, we evaluate the potential of  Boston's attempt to "gentrification-proof" the Fairmount Line , building affordable housing to keep transit from displacing people with low incomes. Too often, the allure of transit raises rents, bringing in a new demographic of people who can pay them -- and who, ironically,  usually have cars . One innova...

All   the   buzz  is about Arlington, Virginia, these days -- the Washington, DC suburb has seen its population rise and its car traffic drop at the same time. How did they do it? It could be a lesson for Palo Alto, California, which is  considering various growth proposals , including one that would invite greater density as long as it comes with no additional driving, carbon emissions, or water...

While most people know Walt Disney as the creator of lovable characters like Mickey Mouse and movies like Snow White and Fantasia, Disney doesn't get as much credit for his design of Disneyland. Turns out Disney made himself an expert on the subject.       This podcast isn't a typical Talking Headways conversation. It's a 45-minute episode, produced by Jeff for the Overhead Wire, on one topic:  th...

Did you wear your helmet when you biked to work this morning? Whether you did or you didn't, it's up to you. So why are there so many people shrieking about it? On one side, the  85-percenters , overstating the protection helmets offer against head injuries. On the other side, the  3-footers , claiming that it's actually safer to go helmetless because drivers give you more space and a host of othe...

Finally, there is a light rail line connecting the Twin Cities. The Green Line,  running 11 miles from Union Depot in downtown St. Paul to Target Field in downtown Minneapolis , cost $957 million and several decades to build. The process of choosing stations was contentious but eventually embraced the proposals of the low-income communities that wanted stations, and the line is already being looke...

The metro is coming to Loudon County. Eventually. The Silver Line expansion that opens this summer will only go as far as Reston, but by 2018 it'll be in Loudon, one of the nation's fastest-growing -- and wealthiest -- counties. As the county continues to add population density -- in large part by growing its communities of color -- will it hit 800 people per square mile, which is the threshold at...

This week, Smart Growth America  brought us the bad news : More than 47,000 people died while walking between 2003 and 2012. Most are killed on high-speed arterial roads. A disproportionate number are elderly or  racial minorities . Paris brought us the antidote: The city is  lowering its default speed limit  to 30 kilometers, or about 18 miles, per hour. Speeds are already set at that level in ab...

Welcome to a super-long extra-bonus episode of Talking Headways! We only took on two topics this week, but we got so gonzo excited about them both we just couldn’t shut up. First, we talked to Christof Spieler, a member of Houston Metro, about the “blank-sheet” bus overhaul he helped design. Instead of trying to tweak the current system around its edges, Metro decided to start again from scratch,...

We were so excited about  the Census' first-ever report exclusively focused on biking and walking  that we devoted this entire episode of the Talking Headways podcast to an interview with its author, Brian McKenzie.  Bike commuting is up 60 percent since 2000, the Census data shows, and  people with low incomes are by far the biggest proportion  of the riding public.  People who bike and walk are...

Welcome to our all-California, all-the-time episode of the Talking Headways podcast. We start with  a statewide debate over whether $60,000+ Teslas should qualify for tax breaks  -- or whether any electric vehicles should get tax breaks. Then on to the conversation about how California's cap-and-trade dollars should be spent.  One proposal , from the State Senate leader, would spend it on affordab...

Did you go to the World Urban Forum in Medellín, Colombia last week? Neither did your hosts Jeff Wood and Tanya Snyder, but we sure found a lot to say about it anyway -- or at least, about the remarkable  urban   transformation  that Medellín made, in the midst of war, to make the city's transportation infrastructure more equitable.  But first, we talked to our very own Angie Schmitt about the  Pa...

Quick quiz: What city is the world leader in highway teardowns? San Francisco? Portland? Madrid? Wrong, wrong, wrong. It's Seoul, South Korea, which has removed 15 urban highways -- and  is about to remove another . In this week's Talking Headways episode, Jeff and I talk about what can take the place of a freeway in a city and why it's worth it. We also debunk the argument, made in  Atlantic Citi...

Jeff and Tanya had a great time this week, getting all outraged at t he short-sighted move by the Tennessee Senate to ban dedicated lanes for transit and high and mighty about cities that devote too much space to surface parking , at the expense of just about everything else. And then we treat ourselves to a fun conversation about the origin of the American playground -- and whether the entire cit...

It was a dark and stormy day in San Francisco and Jeff Wood stayed dry in Woonerf studios, recording the Talking Headways podcast with co-host Tanya Snyder, who was bitter that days after the spring equinox, Washington, DC, was getting hit with another snowstorm. But more importantly -- will New York's gangbusters Citi Bike system wobble due to management issues and financial problems ? What can C...

You think the conflict between Uber and regular taxi drivers -- and cities like Seattle -- is bad? Check out how new taxi apps in China are upending the transportation system and central economic planning. Meanwhile, in Houston, a flea market has brought revitalization without gentrification to a depressed area near the airport, and now an urban design firm is bringing in pop-up infrastructure. An...

What a week! Transit numbers skyrocketed (ahem, by 1.1 percent) to levels not seen since 1956 (depending how you look at it). And Radio Shack is shutting down 20 percent of its stores. And there's a new video game for transit nerds to stay up all night obsessing over! And we tackle the fundamental question of how to make a real change in how people get around. Will it happen just by improving tran...

This week, more than 700 bicycling advocates converged in Washington -- despite a snowstorm that closed down the federal government on Monday and thousands of cancelled flights -- to learn from each other and compare notes from the past year in bicycling advocacy. Tuesday, as the summit wound down and participants started gearing up for Wednesday's Lobby Day on Capitol Hill, hosts Jeff and Tanya w...

So, Bertha is stuck underneath Seattle. Jeff Wood and I ask the essential question: Does it matter? Traffic has collapsed around Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct. Image: Sightline Does Seattle really need that new traffic sewer, when traffic on the Alaskan Way Viaduct has been plummeting ? Or is Seattle's $2.8 billion road project destined to be a Freeway without a Future? We highlight this week's pu...

Hosts Jeff Wood of the Overhead Wire (now working with NRDC's crack transportation team) and Streetsblog's Tanya Snyder talk to Randy Simes in this week's podcast about the dazzling success of the pro-streetcar movement in Cincinnati -- and how they finally grabbed the long-elusive gold ring. Then Randy stayed with us to discuss the false choice between transit that's useful and transit that's fun...

This week, Jeff Wood and I get morose and indignant, in turns, about Miami-Dade County's misuse of transit funds for roads and the depressing trend of pedestrian malls going belly-up . And then we peek behind the curtain at an exciting new frontier for urban planning: connecting urban form with the feelings they inspire . And then, just for you: a bonus Valentine's Day outtake at the end. How coul...

Danish architect and urban planner Jan Gehl, who led the turn away from modernism and toward livable cities dominated by public space for people and not cars, is on a U.S. tour. Tanya got to sit down with him in Washington. In this episode of Talking Headways, you can hear Gehl in his own words about everything from his assertion that "the tower is the lazy architect's answer to density" to the Mo...