Jeff Wood

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.

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 is Gabe Klein, former transportation director in Washington DC and Chicago, who talks about how cars are changing and what that means for streets and cities.

This week we’re chatting with Sharon Feigon of the Shared Use Mobility Center. Bike-share, car-share, ride-hailing -- we talk about all of that and then some, including how these new services may shape the built environment.

Kevin DeGood of the Center for American Progress and Deron Lovaas of NRDC join the podcast this week to talk about rules proposed by U.S. DOT to measure congestion and greenhouse gas emissions. These rules matter because they'll create new feedback loops for transportation agencies -- the feds can create incentives to reduce car trips and carbon pollution if they choose. A draft released in April was not very encouraging, but the final rules could be much better.

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.

Tanya Snyder returns to the podcast this week for a milestone: the 100th episode of Talking Headways. In addition to some reminiscing, we gaze into the future to assess Isaac Asimov’s dream of moving sidewalks. We also discuss the DC Metro and the maintenance problems that have led to talk of a looming shutdown. And in the third and final act we consider how moving to a new location can shape your transportation decisions.

The topic this week is housing affordability and transit, with guests Shima Hamidi, Reid Ewing, and John Renne. They discuss their recent paper in the journal Housing Policy Debate, "How Affordable is HUD Affordable Housing?" As it turns out, a lot of HUD rental assistance is spent in areas with high transportation costs. We talk about the impetus for the study and how they designed it.

On the podcast this week is Robert Ping, executive director of the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute, who tells us about Pittsburgh’s plans for the largest shared space in an American city.

This week I'm joined by James Rojas of Place It! to talk about art in planning and Latino urbanism. James is an award-winning planner and a native Angeleno, and he tells us about how growing up in East LA and visiting his grandmother’s house shaped the way he thinks about urban spaces and design.

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.