Saturday, March 11, 2017

Podcast: Designing City Streets for People

This week Corinne Kisner and Matthew Roe of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) tell us about their influential series of street design guides — manuals that give transportation engineers “permission” to reorient streets so walking, biking, and transit come first. Listen in and learn how the guides are put together and how cities are using them to change their streets to prioritize people instead of cars.

Saturday, March 4, 2017

Podcast: Transit Predictions for 2017 with Yonah Freemark

This week we’re joined by Yonah Freemark, author of the Transport Politic and Streetsblog’s new series Getting Transit Right. Each year, Yonah and I predict what’s in store for transit in the next 12 months and break down the results of last year’s transit predictions. In between, Yonah and I talk about high-speed rail, transit and development, Elon Musk’s crazy tunnel ideas, and the future of federal policy.


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Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Podcast: Can All Cities Be Great?

The guest this episode is Alexander Garvin, author of the recently released book What Makes a Great City. We chat about why people are an important factor in building cities and taking pictures; Houston’s Post Oak Boulevard is going to show up Chicago, San Francisco, and New York’s best streets; and Alexander’s heroes, from Edmund Bacon to Haussmann to Robert Moses.

Friday, February 10, 2017

Podcast: High Speed Rail Station Planning in France, Parts 1 & 2

In a two part discussion of French high-speed rail and cities, guest host and German Marshall Fund fellow Eric Eidlin interviews Stephan de Fay, executive director of Bordeaux Euratlantique, the public agency overseeing the redevelopment of Bordeaux’s main train station, and Etienne Tricaud, president and CEO of AREP, the French railway’s architecture office.

We thought you might find their thoughts on the subject illuminating so we pulled some specific quotes from Episode 1.  We'll be back with more in Episode 2 in a subsequent post.


A few quotes of significance from the first episode:

On the citizens mental map of France:
HSR has fundamentally changed the mental map of France. Time-space relationships are now completely different. The French now think of their country as a network of cities that are easily connected to one another. - Etienne Tricaud
On having experts in-house:
...we exist to take risks and to take decisions. At some point, we need to be able to evaluate things by ourselves. It is not our role to do architectural design, for example. But having people on staff who know how to design, and who therefore also know how to speak intelligently with people who design is very important. This in-house competency helps us to be more relevant, both in terms of the questions that we ask and ultimately the decisions that we make. - Stephan de Fay
On urban planning:
Fundamentally, architecture is space planning, it’s organization of the space. So early on, we need to think about the organization of the pedestrian spaces of the station, the organization of the surrounding district, as well as the layout of the local transportation systems that serve the station.- Etienne Tricaud
On value:
However, if the public sector leverages that value of the investment that it is making in transportation (HSR), additional public subsidy for urban development in station areas is not necessary. In our case, our expenditures are equal to our revenues. We invest one billion euros on the district around the station and we earn on billion euros through the sale of construction rights. - Stephan de Fay
The audio above was first posted at Streetsblog USA.



The audio above was first posted at Streetsblog USA.

Sunday, February 5, 2017

Transit Trends Episode 10: Electric Vehicles and the Environment

Drive Oregon's vision for electric mobility includes more than just electric cars. We sat down with Jeff Allen, Executive Director of Drive Oregon, to discuss electric mobility innovation and the challenge of connecting with consumers.

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Podcast: Innovation, Introverts, and Uber Wars

This week we’re joined by David Zipper, managing director at 1776 Ventures, a global startup hub based in Washington, DC. A veteran of the Bloomberg administration in New York City and the administrations of Adrian Fenty and Vincent Gray in Washington, David discusses the deal DC struck with Living Social and the introduction of ride-hailing regulations during the city’s infamous Uber Wars. We also chat about transportation companies blossoming around the globe and what traits make for great innovators.

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Podcast: Cities on a Hill with Francis Fitzgerald

This week we’re joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Francis Fitzgerald to talk about her 1986 book, Cities on a Hill. We discuss the different “visionary” communities described in the book, including Rajneeshpuram in Oregon, San Francisco’s Castro district, Sun City retirement communities, and Jerry Falwell’s moral majority in Lynchburg, Virginia. Francis also talks about living in New York City and restaurant culture in Vietnam. Fitzgerald’s latest book, The Evangelicals, is out April 4.

Friday, January 20, 2017

Podcast: Navigating Nairobi

This week’s guest is Stephane Eboko, chief revenue officer at Ma3route, a transportation information platform with over half a million users in Nairobi. Stephane tells about about the platform and how it helps people avoid traffic, interesting information from users reporting their experiences, and what travel on the private buses called Matatus is like in Kenya’s capital.

Saturday, January 7, 2017

Podcast: Every Cocktail Napkin Has an Alternative Alignment

This installment of the Talking Headways podcast comes from this year’s NACTO Designing Cities Conference in Seattle. Moderated by David Bragdon, executive director of TransitCenter, this discussion examines the obstacles streets and transit agencies face when trying to move good projects forward, and the relationships that help make progress possible. The panel features LA DOT’s General Manager Seleta Reynolds, LACMTA’s Deputy Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Wiggins, Seattle DOT’s Director Scott Kubly, and Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff.

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Podcast: Colonias — Informal Housing in the U.S.

This week on Talking Headways our guest is Emily Perlmeter of the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas. Emily discusses the half million people living in informal settlements known as Colonias, on the U.S. side of the Mexican border. Join us for a look at how these settlements are formed, who lives there, and their strengths and hardships.