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Category Archives: Blog

Mondays 104: New Cities, New Towns, New Trouble

January 24, 2022

We’re Han Solo this week on Mondays at the Overhead Wire!  We talk about Jennifer Homendy and the 94% rule, the need to stop fetishizing old buildings, Donald Shoup’s sidewalk fix, and how some non-profits and foundations are taking a greater governmental role as governments atrophy. We also talk about moving the capital of Indonesia


(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 366: Inherent Transportation Expertise

January 20, 2022

This week we’re joined by Anna Zivarts from Disability Rights Washington and Paulo Nunes-Ueno from Front and Centered. They join us to talk about the Disability Mobility Initiative and story map, as well as the Mobility Bill of Rights.  We also chat about why mobility experiments might make travel harder for disabled travelers and why


(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 365: A City is Not a Computer

January 13, 2022

This week we’re joined by Shannon Mattern, professor of Anthropology at the New School for Social Research. Shannon talks with us about her new book A City is Not a Computer: Other Urban Intelligences.  We discuss the ideas of smartness versus wisdom, the idea of maintenance as a way of absorbing information, and the city


Mondays 103: Transit Should Not Operate Like a Business

January 10, 2022

This week we’re on our own talking about empty storefronts (NYT), whether transit should be run like a business (Laurel in Transit), the ethics of building multifamily housing on arterial streets (Slate), and Tri-Rail’s problems pulling into the station (Miami Herald).  All that right here on Mondays at The Overhead Wire.


(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 364: Creating a Better Transit Board

January 6, 2022

This week on the podcast, we’re back at last fall’s virtual Railvolution conference. Former BART GM Grace Crunican moderates a panel discussing the role of board members in transit agencies with Former MBTA board member Monica Tibbits-Nutt and former Houston Metro board member Christof Spieler. They talk about how to deal with board members with


(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 363: Not Just Wires, Pipes, and Roads

December 16, 2021

This week we’re joined by Michael Spotts, a senior visiting research fellow at ULI’s Terwiliger Center for Housing and head of Neighborhood Fundamentals. Michael chats with us about takeaways from the Shaw Symposium on Urban Community Issues, the definition of infrastructure, and the importance of taking a systems approach to important interconnected topics like transportation,


Mondays 102: Christmas Markets and Public Health

December 14, 2021

Our last show of the year!  Chrissy Mancini Nichols and Tracy McMillan join the show with an overarching theme of public health. We talk LA street vending carts, climate impacts of shipping, transportation insecurity, drought and water shortages, and Christmas markets in Germany.


(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 362: The Traffic War is Never Won

December 8, 2021

This week we’re joined by University of Virginia Associate Professor Peter Norton, to talk about his new book Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving.  Peter discusses the false promises of auto makers and technologists and the mobility solutions that are already in front of us. To listen to this episode, find it at Streetsblog


Mondays 101: Auto Nostalgia and the Oil Crisis

December 7, 2021

This episode of Mondays we’re joined by Gabrielle Esperdy, a professor of architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and a contributing writer for Places. This episode was produced in partnership with Places Journal. Gabrielle discusses her piece ‘Twilight of Autopia‘ in Places, which includes a deep dive into nostalgia, thoughts on the word


(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 361: Infrastructural Optimism

December 2, 2021

This week we’re joined by Linda Samuels, associate professor of urban design at Washington University in St. Louis to talk about her book Infrastructural Optimism. We chat about how growth for growth’s sake is not the answer, learn from post modernist urbanism, and why systems should be more connected. Listen to the audio of this


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