Jeff and Tanya had a great time this week, getting all outraged at t he short-sighted move by the Tennessee Senate to ban dedicated lanes for transit and high and mighty about cities that devote too much space to surface parking , at the expense of just about everything else. And then we treat ourselves to a fun conversation about the origin of the American playground -- and whether the entire city should be the playground. We think you'll enjoy this one. Meanwhile, have you subscribed to the Ta...
Apr 02, 2014•35 min
It was a dark and stormy day in San Francisco and Jeff Wood stayed dry in Woonerf studios, recording the Talking Headways podcast with co-host Tanya Snyder, who was bitter that days after the spring equinox, Washington, DC, was getting hit with another snowstorm. But more importantly -- will New York's gangbusters Citi Bike system wobble due to management issues and financial problems ? What can Chicago (and, oh, every other American city) do to create more affordable housing in the neighborhood...
Mar 27, 2014•35 min
You think the conflict between Uber and regular taxi drivers -- and cities like Seattle -- is bad? Check out how new taxi apps in China are upending the transportation system and central economic planning. Meanwhile, in Houston, a flea market has brought revitalization without gentrification to a depressed area near the airport, and now an urban design firm is bringing in pop-up infrastructure. And Californians are proving that the culture shift away from the automobile and toward other modes of...
Mar 18, 2014•35 min
What a week! Transit numbers skyrocketed (ahem, by 1.1 percent) to levels not seen since 1956 (depending how you look at it). And Radio Shack is shutting down 20 percent of its stores. And there's a new video game for transit nerds to stay up all night obsessing over! And we tackle the fundamental question of how to make a real change in how people get around. Will it happen just by improving transit and other modes -- or do you need to make driving less appealing , as Emily Badger suggests in A...
Mar 13, 2014•36 min
This week, more than 700 bicycling advocates converged in Washington -- despite a snowstorm that closed down the federal government on Monday and thousands of cancelled flights -- to learn from each other and compare notes from the past year in bicycling advocacy. Tuesday, as the summit wound down and participants started gearing up for Wednesday's Lobby Day on Capitol Hill, hosts Jeff and Tanya were joined by Doug Gordon of Brooklyn Spoke , Suepinda Keith of Triangle Bikeworks in Chapel Hill, a...
Mar 06, 2014•46 min
So, Bertha is stuck underneath Seattle. Jeff Wood and I ask the essential question: Does it matter? Traffic has collapsed around Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct. Image: Sightline Does Seattle really need that new traffic sewer, when traffic on the Alaskan Way Viaduct has been plummeting ? Or is Seattle's $2.8 billion road project destined to be a Freeway without a Future? We highlight this week's public conversation over CNU's big report calling out highways just begging to be drowned in the batht...
Feb 26, 2014•35 min
Hosts Jeff Wood of the Overhead Wire (now working with NRDC's crack transportation team) and Streetsblog's Tanya Snyder talk to Randy Simes in this week's podcast about the dazzling success of the pro-streetcar movement in Cincinnati -- and how they finally grabbed the long-elusive gold ring. Then Randy stayed with us to discuss the false choice between transit that's useful and transit that's fun and beautiful . And we analyze an architect's proposal to expand BART's capacity by building a seco...
Feb 20, 2014•43 min
This week, Jeff Wood and I get morose and indignant, in turns, about Miami-Dade County's misuse of transit funds for roads and the depressing trend of pedestrian malls going belly-up . And then we peek behind the curtain at an exciting new frontier for urban planning: connecting urban form with the feelings they inspire . And then, just for you: a bonus Valentine's Day outtake at the end. How could you not listen to the whole thing? You can subscribe to this podcast’s RSS feed or subscribe to th...
Feb 12, 2014•35 min
Danish architect and urban planner Jan Gehl, who led the turn away from modernism and toward livable cities dominated by public space for people and not cars, is on a U.S. tour. Tanya got to sit down with him in Washington. In this episode of Talking Headways, you can hear Gehl in his own words about everything from his assertion that "the tower is the lazy architect's answer to density" to the Moscow mayor's hyper-efficient way of getting people to stop parking on Main Street. You can subscribe...
Feb 06, 2014•39 min
Jeff Wood and Tanya Snyder are back with episode 8 of the Talking Headways podcast. We talk about the Los Angeles Metro's decision not to extend light rail all the way to LAX (and what they're doing instead), plus some analysis of what rail can really do in a city as spread-out as LA. Then we head east to Princeton, New Jersey, where we debunk the thesis that low sales of luxury condos somehow equates to a rejection of walkability . And finally, back west to Seattle, which finds itself with a si...
Jan 28, 2014•36 min
The best thing about hosting a Streetsblog podcast is getting to call on other Streetsblog reporters for the lowdown on the biggest news of the week. In this case, Jeff Wood and I called on Ben Fried, Streetsblog's editor-in-chief and New York-based reporter, to explain why we can stop being cynical and just appreciate that a New York mayor just dedicated himself to a vision of zero traffic deaths in the city. We also took a look at how California is changing its environmental laws to stop consi...
Jan 22, 2014•35 min
This week, podcast co-host Jeff Wood and I got to chat with The Transport Politic's Yonah Freemark about the outlook for new transit projects in 2014. Building off Yonah's thorough (and colorful!) outline of the year's expected transit starts, we talked about the projects we were most excited about, including some that have been a long time coming. And we take a look back at what kind of year 2013 was for transit. This conversation was so good we went over our usual half-hour time slot and riffe...
Jan 13, 2014•50 min
Jeff Wood and Tanya Snyder talk about the news of the week that most tickled us or burned us -- the BBC's exposé of anti-social design features that not-so-subtly tell us to stay away, San Francisco's brewing class war over the Google bus, and a bad decision by Cincinnati's new mayor and city council to "pause" construction of the streetcar. (Note: Watch for breaking news on that last item.) Meanwhile, I wax nostalgic for public space in Havana and Jeff laments slow progress on the Geary Bouleva...
Dec 12, 2013•33 min
Jeff and Tanya discuss the impressive turnout -- and possible pitfalls -- of London's 1,000-person die-in for cyclists' rights. We try to contain our envy (but not our amazement) at Paul Salopek's seven-year journey tracing the path of Homo sapiens from the Rift Valley to Tierra del Fuego. And we admit that yes, even passionate transit advocates know what it means to embarrassed about taking the bus.
Dec 05, 2013•32 min
This week, Jeff and Tanya take on the Atlanta Braves' terrible, no-good, very bad decision to move their stadium to Cobb County, Georgia. We discuss cities that are (and are not) shaped like wedding cakes, and whether that means you need to smoosh your spouse's face in it. Tanya makes a pedestrian-rights argument against high-heeled shoes (and Jeff abstains from taking sides). We parse the differences between "shared streets" -- without marked-out space for cars, bikes, and people on foot -- and...
Nov 25, 2013•34 min
Streetsblog Capitol Hill Editor Tanya Snyder and Reconnecting America's Jeff Wood talk about the war on bikes, the end of the Klein/Sadik-Khan era, and a whole bunch of sprawling messes down in Texas. And then we go to our happy place.
Nov 12, 2013•33 min
Streetsblog's first podcast. Capitol Hill Editor Tanya Snyder and Reconnecting America's Jeff Wood talk about the pitfalls of regional planning, the hijinks of Florida Governor Rick Scott, and the ins and outs of fantasy maps.
Nov 04, 2013•24 min
