Jeff Wood

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).

This week we're joined by Nathan Landau, a transit planner in the Bay Area and author of the travel guide Car Free Los Angeles and Southern California. It's got great places to eat, theater, live music, and even local book stores. But why write a travel guide that focuses on getting around without a car? And why is a northern California planner writing about the southern part of the state? Listen and find out.

Rob Sadow, CEO and co-founder of carpooling app Scoop, joins us this week to talk about how the company got started and what they are trying to achieve.

This week we’re talking about water in cities. It's a topic that doesn’t get much attention because the infrastructure is mostly underground, but after putting this together I believe thinking about water infrastructure and climate change is more important than ever.

How do the places we inhabit lead to systemic public health problems?

Shin-pei Tsay of Transit Center joins me this week to delve into her new report, A People’s History of Recent Urban Transportation Innovation, which examines how advocacy and political leadership have combined in several American cities to produce a more multi-modal transportation network.