Jeff Wood

This week we’re chatting with Ian Brown, former managing director for London Rail. Ian discusses everything London transport, including congestion pricing; constructing, financing; and making the case for the massive Crossrail project; bus operations; cycling; operations contracts; and even contactless fare payment systems.

This week I’m joined by Meea Kang, Rail~volution board member and founding partner of Domus Development. I caught up with Meea at the Rail~volution conference to talk about what it’s like to be an affordable housing developer building sustainable projects. We discuss the 16 variances needed to do transit-oriented development in Sacramento, workforce housing in Tahoe on a bus line with 60-minute headways, and what it takes to pass a state law that reduces parking requirements near transit.

This week I’m joined by Tiffany Chu, co-founder of the transit planning software firm Remix, which helps agencies quickly assess the impact of potential changes in service. Tiffany discusses the response the company has received from the transit industry and what got it started. We also talk about the possible policy implications of Remix, as well as the movement towards open data.

This week on the podcast: Transit advocate Sunday Parker discusses access for people with disabilities. We talk about the design of transit stations, the layout of the new BART train cars and what that means for different types of users, the idea of universal design and access in the overall built environment, and our best transit days.

Our guest this week is Rob Puentes of the Eno Center for Transportation, an organization that has focused on better transportation outcomes for 95 years. Rob touches on a number of topics that we don't usually explore in-depth, like aviation, freight, and coordinating automated vehicle policy. With November 8 less than two months away, we also discuss the presidential election. Enjoy.

This week we've got a fascinating discussion from the Live.Ride.Share conference in Denver earlier this year. Hear what representatives from NRDC, Uber, Lyft, and U.S. DOT think about the future of shared-use mobility systems, carpooling services, autonomous vehicles, and their impact on cities and greenhouse gases.

This week we're doing something a little different with the podcast. It's the morning plenary from last month's Live.Ride.Share conference in Denver. You'll hear Jill Locantore of WalkDenver introduce University of Virginia Professor Peter Norton, author of Fighting Traffic, who discusses how automobiles were sold to the public at the beginning of the motor age. Following Norton is Gabe Klein, former transportation director in Washington DC and Chicago, who talks about how cars are changing and what that means for streets and cities.

Kevin DeGood of the Center for American Progress and Deron Lovaas of NRDC join the podcast this week to talk about rules proposed by U.S. DOT to measure congestion and greenhouse gas emissions. These rules matter because they'll create new feedback loops for transportation agencies -- the feds can create incentives to reduce car trips and carbon pollution if they choose. A draft released in April was not very encouraging, but the final rules could be much better.

Think land use is none of a transit agency's business? Think again. Transit routes serving sprawled-out areas draw fewer riders and cost more to operate than routes serving compact, walkable development.

Christy Kwan, interim director of the Alliance for Biking and Walking, joins us this week to talk about the alliance's bi-annual national Benchmarking Report. It's full of great information and Christy shares how local activists might put it to good use in their communities (and why they might not want their cities to score too well in the rankings).