Policy Episodes

Mailbag! – David & Wes take listener questions on any and all things transportation. Before doing so, they talk about why David is at the Northwestern Transportation Library. The answer? He’s writing a book about congestion p...

Florida Men – David & Wes venture down to Fort Lauderdale for the 2026 Safe Roads Summit. After their respective talks, they jump on stage to record a live podcast episode with Broward MPO Executive Director, Greg Stuart. Top...

Rural AVs – David & Wes take a deep dive into the future of rural transportation and why mobility challenges outside our cities deserve far more attention. From David’s experience trying to get around West Virginia to Wes’ ta...

Parking Meters – David & Wes unpack the recent multi-billion-dollar resale of Chicago’s parking meter lease and why it matters. They explain the contract, including the compensation clause, and how it continues to hamstring C...

AV Safety – David & Wes explain why an online kerfuffle about autonomous vehicle safety unexpectedly put David himself in the spotlight. They unpack why autonomous vehicle debates so often generate more noise than insight, ho...

End of Year Extravaganza – David & Wes toss the usual format aside to look back at the transportation stories that defined 2025. From policies and headlines that made them hopeful to moments that were equal parts absurd and i...

Waymo in Cities – David & Wes explore why cities are beginning to push back on Waymo and other robotaxi companies, and what that resistance reveals about local control, safety, and trust in emerging technologies. Using Boston...

Defunding Transit – David & Wes examine the growing efforts to defund transit through mechanisms like the Highway Trust Fund. What happens when transit funding is threatened and slowly hollowed out? Rather than treating these...

New York City – David & Wes break down Mamdani's New York City’s new transportation agenda and & the priorities it elevates and avoids. We examine how political vision, implementation, and street-level realities align or clas...

Traffic Noise – David & Wes dig into traffic noise as an overlooked public health problem and a quiet but pervasive form of harm in cities. Moving beyond annoyance, we explore how constant exposure to noise affects health, eq...

Transit Funding – David & Wes dive into the growing threats to U.S. transit funding and why they matter far beyond agency balance sheets. By looking at how federal decisions shape what cities can build and operate, they unpac...

Traffic Cameras – David & Wes take a closer look at traffic cameras and why they consistently poll better than most people expect. Rather than treating automated enforcement as a political third rail, they explore what the da...

Abundance in Transportation – David & Wes take on the idea of abundance in transportation. What would an abundant transportation system look like? Why do so many policies end up producing scarcity instead? We also explore how...

This is episode 1 of Look Both Ways with David & Wes, a new transportation podcast by David Zipper & Wes Marshall