The CT Podcast

The CTPodcast welcomes William Freedman — who is several weeks into a 10-week trek from Long Island to California's Pacific Coast using only local forms of community and public transportation — the Cross Country Local. Joining the podcast from a hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio, Bill discusses the 800 miles he's traveled thus far, including the gaps he's encountered and the support he's found along the way. Listeners can follow Bill's journey on Facebook at the group Cross County Local or via twitter using the hashtag XCLocal. He welcomes any financial assistance through his gofundme page. The CTPodcast will be holding regular conversations with Bill as he traverses the country, so consider this the first in a series of podcasts on the Cross Country Local. Listen Here: (21:16)

CHK America's President & CEO, Rick Wood, joins the CT Podcast to discuss the vital, but often overlooked, practice of transit wayfinding. Here, Wood covers the science of navigating through public spaces, the psychology of wayfinding and the 8-second rule as well as CHK America's role in developing cohesive sets of transit wayfinding systems. Fears about navigating a transit system safely and successfully, notes Wood, is often the single-most significant barrier to ridership growth. Listeners will learn that wayfinding is far more than just maps. Listen Here: 22:04 

There is great value in the work that goes on across the country every day to connect rural residents with jobs, health care, education, shopping and all the other destinations that improve their daily lives. Here, CARTS GM Dave Marsh discusses the history of rural public transportation, including what has changed in the past 40 years — and what has remained. "We're all about getting things done and getting people places," says Marsh. "It's a daily reward to make these connections and we maintain that spirit and those values here at CARTS." Listen Here: 23:09

Trillium's Principal, Aaron Antrim, joins the CT Podcast to discuss the evolution of transit scheduling trip planning and mapping technologies. "We work with transit agencies on making their systems easier to navigate," says Antrim of Trillium's goal. In this wide-ranging discussion, Antrim covers such vital topics as the power of multi-modalism, the future of real-time scheduling, the significance of industry-standard data formats and how Trillium's work enables more responsive transit networks.

During the podcast, Antrim references a key resource — The Many Uses of GTFS Data: Opening the Door to Transit and Multimodal Applications — that he authored along with CUTR's Sean Barbeau. It can be accessed here.

Listen Here: 28:55

In this edition of the CTPodcast, Driver Doug — trolley bus operator and author — discusses his book, Finding Zen in San Francisco Transit: A Bus Driver's Perspective. With 17 years of experience, Driver Doug shares what it means to be, "packed, stacked and racked" during the morning and evening commutes, and the importance of finding each route's "zen zone." Also, he covers what it takes to be his passenger of the day, the "invisible karmic ledger" and offers some practical advise to transit system management and planners on how to make everyone's trips just a little easier. If you enjoy this podcast, I think you'll really like his book. Listen Here: 24:22

AARP recently published an important new resource entitled, "Expanding Specialized Transportation: New Opportunities under the Affordable Care Act." Here, the report's authors — Wendy Fox-Grage and Jana Lynott — discuss what they learned in the year's worth of writing and research on the report, as well as some vital takeaways for community and public transportation operators, leaders and advocates. The podcast covers promising practices and how these new opportunities shape the future of what's come to be known as coordinated transportation. If you'd like to cut through the rhetoric and better understand the real import of the Affordable Care Act for community and public transit, this report and podcast are a great place to start.

Listen Here: 22:31

Tiffany Chu, co-founder and chief design officer with Transitmix joins the CTPodcast to discuss the birth of Transitmix — a simple, modern mapping tool for transit planners, professionals and advocates. Emanating from a project at Code for America, Transitmix is an easy-to-use, visual transit planning platform that, according to Chu, "democratizes the transit planning process." Chu sees Transitmix as an important step in giving transit a larger voice in the technology sector, as well as giving technology a larger voice in the transit industry. Finally, we discuss the transformative role of the now-arriving wave of big data in transit. Listen Here: (16:29)

Dag Gogue and Farhan Daredia of Transit Labs join the CT Podcast to talk big data, analytics and the most recent edition of DigitalCT magazine — which included 25 pages of data infographics. According to Gogue, community and public transit need to embrace data's positive influence on measuring outcomes, understanding trends and improving efficiency. "Data is a tool that can help make transit's case here in Washington, or at state legislatures," he notes, during the discussion. Listen Here: 25:17

Ashley Robbins of the Center for Transportation Excellence joins Scott to break down how transit fared in the 2014 elections. We cover the the big wins and disappointments and analyze the key takeaways leading into 2015 and 2016. Listen Here (17:01)

Jarrett Walker -- transit author, blogger and consultant -- becomes the first recurring guest on the CTPodcast. Walker discusses the changing nature of the work trip in public transit, particularly as it relates to service design, noting: "the way you plan for transit to work is the way you plan for everyday trips... work trips should not be an isolated service." Key topics covered in this discussion include high-frequency service, low-income workers and common-sense system design and redesign. Listen Here (21:03)