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Transit Tangents
The Podcast where we discuss all things transit. Join us as we dive into transit systems across the US, bring you interviews with experts and advocates, and engage in some fun and exciting challenges along the way.
Episodes
123 episodes
World Cup Transit Price Gouging
$150 to take the train to a World Cup match is the kind of headline that makes you do a double take. We dig into the growing fight over World Cup 2026 public transit pricing and why some US host regions seem ready to treat trains and buses like...
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Colorado Front Range Regional Rail
Colorado’s Front Range is one of the most obvious “should have a train” corridors in the United States, yet the Denver to Boulder to Fort Collins connection has stalled for decades. We dig into what’s changing and why a new Front Range passenge...
The Rio Grande Plan: Salt Lake City
A historic train station sits near the heart of Salt Lake City, but many riders still get dropped on the edge of downtown and told to transfer and walk through empty industrial blocks. That disconnect is at the center of our conversation with c...
CalTrain Electrification - How's It Doing?
Caltrain’s Peninsula Corridor Electrification Project is the kind of US transit upgrade we desperately need more of: a 51-mile modernization between San Francisco and San Jose that turns a solid but peak-focused commuter rail line into somethin...
The E-Bike Crackdown
License plates for e-bikes sound...ridiculous. Imagine: DMV trips, new fees, insurance quotes, and a bigger wall between people and the cheapest form of electric transportation in the US. With gas prices climbing and more riders looking f...
Amtrak Ridership Is Rising
“Passenger rail is dead” gets thrown around like it’s a fact, but the ridership numbers keep refusing to cooperate. We zoom out to Amtrak’s systemwide performance first, including record highs of 32.8 million rides in FY24 and 34.5 million trip...
Pittsburgh: A Transit City?
Pittsburgh doesn’t usually come to mind as a “big transit city,” but once you look closely, it has some of the most practical and inventive transit infrastructure in the U.S. We dig into how Pittsburgh’s hills, rivers, and industrial rail legac...
Berlin: Tram Or Maglev? A Real Debate
A strange transit showdown is brewing in Berlin: build a practical tram that stitches together everyday trips, or elevate a sleek maglev that sprints between a handful of stations. Louis spent the day on the ground from Spandau to the former Te...
Urban Quest - A Transit-Powered Scavenger Hunt
What happens when you hand teams a stack of clues, the Transit App, a free bus pass, and then issue one non-negotiable rule—no rideshare? Urban Quest turns Austin into a living classroom where kids and adults learn to navigate Cap Metro, discov...
Is Florida Building Real Transit?
We break down Miami’s fast-evolving transit network and spotlight the new Northeast Corridor commuter rail that links Miami Central to Aventura. From BRT with crossing arms to Tri-Rail’s downtown link and funding twists, we weigh benefits, risk...
Transit Tour: Paris
Starting at Notre Dame and ending at the Eiffel Tower sounds like a classic Paris day. In between, we set a challenge: cross the city using only public transit and discover what makes a system feel truly effortless.The result is a rapid ...
St. Louis MetroLink Extension - Building with Optimism
We weigh the $150 million St. Louis MetroLink extension to MidAmerica Airport against projected ridership and explain how Illinois state funding, decades of pre-planning, and significant optimism have made this project a reality. •...
"Cable 1" Takes Off Over Paris - And We Rode It!
We travel to the edge of Paris to ride a new five-station urban gondola that extends Metro Line 8, showing how aerial transit can beat ground constraints, cut commute times, and invite better station design. Along the way, we talk with David Ra...
Paris Cut Vehicle Traffic by 50%
What does a city feel like after it cuts car traffic in half and gives the streets back to people? We take you onto Paris’ bike lanes, into its buses and metros, and through the policies that turned a car-choked capital into a place where movem...
2026 FIFA World Cup Cities, Ranked By Transit
Choosing your World Cup city could be the difference between a breezy, car-free celebration and a stressful shuttle hunt. We break down all 16 host cities across the United States, Canada, and Mexico with one goal in mind: how easily can a trav...
The London Map That Changed The World
We trace how London turned a messy rail network into a global template for wayfinding, from the Underground roundel to Harry Beck’s diagrammatic map and the Legible London street totems. We compare London’s cohesive design to New York’s hybrid ...
Why A Century-Old Forest Tram Still Beats The Bus
We ride the Thuringian Waldbahn from Gotha through forest and small towns, tracing its history and design while asking why systems like this are rare elsewhere. Along the way we test timed transfers, swap notes on fares, and weigh what rural mo...
Top Transit Projects Coming in 2026!
Eight new transit links, one very mobile year. We’re diving into the projects that will actually change how U.S. cities move in 2026—from a light rail that glides over a floating bridge to a long‑awaited people mover that finally tames LAX’s tr...
DART Membership up for Election?
A celebratory Silver Line opening collides with city referendums to leave DART, putting service, funding, and future upgrades at risk. We weigh the politics and the human impact, and lay out what residents can do before the 2026 votes.•...
Seattle - Federal Way Link Extension Opens!
We unpack Seattle’s latest transit surge, from the Federal Way light rail extension to the cross‑lake Two Line testing across the Lake Washington Floating Bridge. We close with the express‑lane BRT buildout and how highway stitches, feeder rout...
Is the US Ready for Night Trains?
We examine whether night trains can work in the United States by starting with a real sleeper ride from Zurich to Leipzig and then mapping routes where overnight service fits naturally. Dreamstar’s proposed LA–SF sleeper gets a reality check, w...
Transit Tour: Zurich
We ride Zurich’s entire transit ecosystem in one day, testing how trams, S-Bahn, buses, funiculars, a cog railway, an aerial cable car, and a lake ferry connect... without a subway. Along the way, we unpack why Zurich never built a U-Bahn and h...
Transit Tangents: 100th Episode!
We mark 100 straight weeks by revisiting our 2025 transit list and tracking which projects delivered results. Chicago’s frequent buses, NYC’s congestion pricing, LA’s push for speed and access, and new lines in Dallas and Honolulu show how fund...
Transit Tour - Munich, Germany
We ride around Munich from the city center to the suburban palaces. We hit it all, trams, buses, U-Bahn and S-Bahn. Home of BMW, our trip reveals a car capital where transit is still king. • Major renovations and expansion of the M...
Kansas City Streetcar Extension Now Open!
We revisit Kansas City to mark the opening of the Main Street streetcar extension and map the next moves that could turn a single corridor into a connected, free-to-ride system. From mixed-traffic tradeoffs to dedicated lanes, riverfront housin...