Jeff Wood

This week's guest on Talking Headways is Zack Wasserman, head of global business development at Via, a ride-hailing company headquartered in New York. We talk about Via’s role as a trip provider, as well as a software builder for transit agencies, and how we can get more people sharing rides. We also discuss how transportation systems are likely to change in lower density places and the role of technological and policy innovation in both the public and private transportation sectors.

This week we’re coming to you from the UITP Global Transport Summit in Montreal with guest Projjal Dutta, director of sustainability at the New York MTA. We chat about the idea of "transit-avoided carbon," how you measure emissions, and the impact of Superstorm Sandy on sustainability thinking in the New York region.

This week Beth Osborne of T4America and Kevin DeGood of The Center for American Progress join us to discuss infrastructure and the new administration. We talk about the budget process -- "skinny" or "thick"? -- the possible benefits and drawbacks of public-private partnerships, and the difference between funding and financing.

This week we’re joined by Patrick Oliva, co-founder of the Paris Process on Mobility and Climate, to talk about the decarbonization of transport. The conversation touches on the electrification of the transportation sector and what it means for climate change, the role cities need to play in the Paris process and what levels of government work best to address climate change, and what the focus should be for mayors in the coming decade.

This week I'm joined by Matthew Heins, author of The Globalization of American Infrastructure: The Shipping Container and Freight Transportation. Matthew talks about how the American highway and rail systems created a global standard for shipping containers, containerization’s effects on labor and relevance to an automated trucking future, and the massive intermodal freight terminals in cities like Chicago.

We’re back with Dr. Lisa Schweitzer of USC’s Price School of Public Policy this week for part two of our discussion. We talk about the idea of jobs/housing balance, her blog post on the Smartest Boy Urbanist, and her favorite planning books and mentors, plus we get a preview of her upcoming book on firearms and cities.

This week's guest is Dr. Lisa Schweitzer of USC's Sol Price School of Public Policy. In the first of a two-part series, Dr. Schweitzer talks about how her students respond to urban planning classes, what a recent controversy in a Los Angeles City Council election reveals about bike advocacy, and autonomous vehicles and land use policy.

This week's guest is Streetfilms' own Clarence Eckerson Jr. Clarence tells us about his start working in video with the BikeTV cable access show, what goes into making Streetfilms, and the best way to approach people on the street for interviews. Listen and you might also catch a few stories about Veronica Moss and the Zozo.

This week we’re joined by Shelley Poticha, director of NRDC’s Urban Solutions Program, who tells us about the organization's new programs like SPARCC and the City Energy Project. We get into federal policy like the Clean Power Plan and the story of how FTA and HUD were finally connected, and we talk about The Next American Metropolis, the 1993 book about transit-oriented development she wrote with Peter Calthorpe.

This week's guest is Matt Horton of Proterra, a company that designs and manufactures battery powered electric buses. We cover the basics of electric buses, power consumption and recharging, the benefits and costs, as well as potential environmental effects.