This week we return to Rail~Volution for a talk with Diana Mendes, who leads the transit and rail practice at HNTB. Diana tells us about meeting the author of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), what needs to change about environmental planning, the early use of GIS, and the environmental planning process for the Lower Manhattan Recovery after 9/11.

This episode examines the obstacles streets and transit agencies face when trying to move good projects forward, and the relationships that help make progress possible.

Our guest is former Madison mayor and current Wisconsin Bike Fed Executive Director Dave Cieslewicz.

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 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 […]

This week I’m joined by cartographer Gretchen Peterson to talk about mapmaking and her new book, City Maps: A Coloring Book for Adults. We discuss why she made the book and why she chose the 40 city maps she included in it. Listen in and hear from Gretchen about the art of cartography, including the […]

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 […]

Laurel Paget-Seekins joins the podcast this week to talk about her days as a transit activist in Atlanta, what Santiago, Chile, taught her about transit networks, and her current work on data collection and dissemination as the director of strategic initiatives at the MBTA in Boston. We discuss the MBTA’s data blog and dashboard, how the agency […]

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. This week, Brian McMahon and GB Arrington join me to talk about our excellent new report, Linking Transit Agencies and Land Use Decision Making. This is a […]

This week I’m chatting with Akshay Mani, a sustainable transportation planner who has worked for Cambridge Systematics in the United States and the World Resources Institute’s EMBARQ program in India. Akshay joined us from Chennai to talk about transportation and the growth of Indian cities. We discuss India’s rapid urbanization and the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, a […]