Talking Headways: A Streetsblog Podcast

This week we're joined by UITP's Sylvain Haon ahead of the organization's global public transport summit in Montreal. We talk about big projects happening around the world, private and public moves towards mobility as a service, sustainable mobility planning in Europe, and how autonomous vehicles will help transit support a shared transportation future.

I can't believe this episode is finally out for everyone to hear! Over a year ago I was approached by a colleague who told me that something big was happening in Oakland and that I should monitor the process as they try to put together a new Transportation Department. This the first and hopefully not the last episode in this series I'm starting on the Oakland Transportation Department to cover how it came to be and what comes next. This particular episode follows new advocacy group Transport Oakland as a parklet project they wanted to see completed became political. Future episodes will cover more politics and mechanics of the department specifically, but I thought this would be a good starting point. So I hope you enjoy this first part of the series, and hopefully it won't take another year to get to episode 2!

This week we're joined by Darnell Grisby, Director of Policy Development and Research at the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). We talk about the national dip in transit ridership, who rides transit around the United States and federal policy going forward. Darnell also talks about technology innovation that might be coming to transit agencies including autonomous buses, different vehicle sizes, new payment systems and more.

This week we're back at the Shared Use Mobility Summit in Chicago this last October. In what feels like a bit of a time warp, Laura Washington of the Chicago Sun Times hosts a panel featuring The Metropolitan Planning Council's MarySue Barrett, the Shared Use Mobility Center's Sharon Feigon, and Transportation for America's James Corless. The panel discusses what they think federal policy will be like with a new administration and what to expect from a Republican Congress. There's a lot of valuable information for thinking about our current infrastructure spending discussion including partnerships and programs even though there was no knowledge of the eventual November winner.

This week we're joined by Corinne Kisner and Matthew Roe of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) to talk about their mission and series of Street Design Guides. We talk about how the guides are put together, how cities are using them to change their streets, and the importance of creating streets for people.

This week we're joined by Yonah Freemark of the Transport Politic and Streetsblog's new series Getting Transit Right. This is our annual prediction show where we break down the results of last year's transit predictions and make some more for 2017. 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.

This week we're joined by Alexander Garvin, author of the recently released book What Makes a Great City. In this episode we chat about why people are an important factor in building cities and taking pictures, why 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.

German Marshall Fund fellow Eric Eidlin guest hosts the podcast this week for part II of our discussion of French high-speed rail and cities. Joining Eric are Stephan de Fay, executive director of Bordeaux Euratlantique, the public agency overseeing the redevelopment of Bordeaux's main train station to accommodate several new high speed rail lines by 2020, and Etienne Tricaud, president and CEO of AREP, the French railway's architecture office. This week we chat about how large projects in France are treated as projects of national significance and the expectations on these projects. There's also a discussion of the Paris region's over 1,483 mayors and the way the Grand Paris project has created better governance structures. Finally Stephan and Etienne discuss their perceptions of Diridon station and how we can create value with these opportunities.

This week German Marshall Fund fellow Eric Eidlin is the host for two French High Speed Rail experts; Stephan de Fay, the Executive Director of Bordeaux Euratlantique, the public agency that is overseeing the redevelopment of Bordeaux's main train station to accommodate several new high speed rail lines by 2020 and Etienne Tricaud, President and CEO of AREP, the French Railway's architecture office. Together they discuss the geography of France and its high speed rail network, the station areas as not just transportation projects but major urban projects, the experts and powers available to public agencies working on station area planning in France, the design of the station area versus that of the district as a whole, and finally the importance of having an overall vision for integrating transportation and land use in the station district. Join us for part 1 of this interesting discussion.

This week we are joined by David Zipper, the Managing Director at 1776 Ventures, a global startup hub based in Washington D.C. A veteran of the Bloomberg Administration in New York City and the mayoral administrations of Adrian Fenty and Vincent Gray in Washington D.C., David discusses innovative initiatives he's been a part of including a deal DC struck with startup company Living Social in addition to the introduction of ride hailing regulations during the infamous DC Uber Wars. We also chat about innovative transportation companies blossoming around the globe as well as what kinds of traits make for great innovators.