Talking Headways: A Streetsblog Podcast

This week on Talking Headways we are sharing Part 1 of a conversation with Reece Martin of The Transit Brief in Toronto at the Mpact Transit + Community Conference. We discuss the politics and impacts of fare policy, construction costs around the globe, the US' existential crisis, and the material benefits of progress.   This episode was recorded at the Mpact Transit + Community conference this ye...

This week we're back and Han Solo but we're covering lots of things including the thinking differently about our transportation investments around the country, the sillyness of cutting property taxes in states, and thinking more about tenant investment vehicles.  Much more of course! Stay tuned. News Items Philly green corridors - Architect's Newspaper More trains - Grist Future transport policy -...

This week we're joined by the director of UNC Charlotte's school of Architecture Blaine Brownell. We talk about the role architecture and urbanism play in population decline, the need for permeability in walkable neighborhoods, and a revolution in building materials. Blaine's upcoming book . Street Permeability: Architect Magazine Architecture's role in population collapse: Architect Magazine +++...

This week on the Talking Headways podcast we're joined by recent USC PhD graduate Wendy Zhou to discuss her dissertation, which focuses on dynamic accessibility . We talk about how static maps without a time based dimension don't tell the whole story on access and the idea of a people based accessibility. +++ Get the show ad free on Patreon ! Find out about our newsletter and archive on YouTube !...

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. +++ Many thanks to Bob Nanna for our intro/outro musi...

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 ++...

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. +++ Get the show ad free on Patreon ! Find out...

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 Feed...

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. +++ Get th...

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...

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 Ken...

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. +++ Get the show ad...

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...

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 - Rea...

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 h...

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, Ine...

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...

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. +++ Get the show ad free on Patreon ! Find out about our newsletter and...

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. +++ Get the show ad free on Patreon ! Find out about our newsletter and archive on YouTube ! Follow us on Bluesky...

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 Ite...

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 y...

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 tra...

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...

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...

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. +++ Get the show ad free on Patreon ! Find out about our newsletter and archive on YouTube ! Follow us on Bluesky, Thr...